Involvement of users Communities of innovation

The main goal for BRIGAID´s Communities of Innovation (CoI) is the facilitation of the market outreach and uptake of innovative and operational products and solutions.

Communities of Innovation are defined as a form of Communities of Practice that are dedicated to the support of innovation (Cookes and Smith, 2007). BRIGAID envisions the Communities of innovation as social networks, composed by several geographically connected actors in one field or in different disciplines but with a common goal or aim.

In order to achieve this goal, BRIGAID acknowledges that climate change adaptation is a place- and context-specific process. This motivates that each CoI shall aim to involve and bring together several actors, -specifically innovators, end users, leading sectoral users, investors and societal interest groups-, in areas with common problems, e.g. risk reduction to a specific hazard or cluster of hazards, and environmental conditions.

The role of CoI’s depends on their potential to:

Facilitate the sharing of knowledge;
Bringing or generating opportunities;
Incubation and prototype creation; and
Dissemination and upscaling of ideas.

It is anticipated that the effectiveness of the actions performed by the CoI’s depends on drivers and barriers to innovation in relation to the institutions and policies that affect the way different agents interact, access, exchange and use knowledge and in short, bring these innovations into action.

BRIGAID acts as a facilitator and promoter of the establishment and activity of different types of CoI’s, also supporting the mutual learning among these CoI’s.

However, the involvement of a large number of actors outside of BRIGAID is a required condition for the full effectiveness of these CoI’s.

CoI’s are expected to be formed by an integrated set of actors interested in reducing the current and expected vulnerability to natural hazards in a specific geographic area by facilitating the market outreach and uptake of innovative and operational products and solutions.

This goal shall be operationalised through:

The participation in BRIGAID demonstration events, and ideally the provision of further support to operational testing of innovations in real environment conditions.
The identification of the actual needs of end users and the further discussion on how these needs can be translated into clear requirements to be incorporated in the final design of the innovations.
The support to the dissemination of BRIGAID results.
The elicitation of drivers and barriers to innovation in relation to institutions and policies.
The sharing of experiences and lessons learnt with other CoI’s and an interest in mutual learning among CoI’s.