Higher Education Institutions as Knowledge Brokers in Smart Specialisation
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Increasing the Competitiveness of the Regions with Knowledge
2.1. Knowledge Brokers in Smart Specialisation
2.2. Creating a Sustainable Knowledge Society
3. Materials and Methods
4. Analysis
4.1. The Role of Actors
“In this case, the enterprises are mostly not participating in the clusters, as we have built up the background for their participation. There are more civil servants and researchers and sympathisers of these clusters. This situation has been necessary, and it has taken a lot of time to reach. The clusters’ development stage varies a lot.“—representative of the developer’s organisation, female.
“…most of the micro enterprises are not interested in . In these kinds of projects, it should be able to demonstrate the measures much more clearly directly to those enterprises you want to make results… must show the resources that are either financial or human resources to help enterprises to the internationalisation and growth.”—representative of developer’s organisation, male.
”There have been education activities and there has been knowledge dissemination on funding programs. We give advice and make comments, for example, on how certain ideas of organisation fit with specific funding programs.“—representative of developer’s organisation, female.
“… there are also actors without previous experience of working in international projects but get an opportunity as a member of the cluster. They finally were part of a very large network for this purpose.”—representative of developer’s organisation, female.
4.2. Network Cooperation Model
“… If they are to receive public support, then their clusters must be so closely coupled that it would not matter if I contacted any cluster member or guide (any of them) down the path towards direct European funding.”—civil servant, male.
“… the management system of all the clusters should be professionalised for the organisation with a longstanding experience about international operating environments.”—representative of developer’s organisation, male.
“… there are multiple needs for internationalisation for example sharing the costs and support. It would be important for someone to be able to search networks in advance and matchmake companies…Unfortunately, the information about cluster work and possibilities has not reached our business.”—entrepreneur, male.
4.3. Knowledge-Capacity Building and Effectiveness of Actions
“…there is a need for more functional clusters. And clusters where it is possible to”surf” based on your own needs… for example if a company needs more information about internationalisation etc…“—representative of entrepreneurs, female.
“Around the universities, research institutes and development organisations, there are many companies so close or sharing the same activity that they do not think about how close they are to clusters work. If our starting point is to build functional clusters, we have to pay more attention on their interaction.”—civil servant, male.
4.4. Decision-Making and Control
“…the activity depends on the mandates to act we have… Companies without management at the regional level must have the ability to commit to the cluster actions from higher levels of management… We need to give practical arguments to managers, about what the goals and intended results of smart specialisation based cluster work are.”—representative of developer’s organisation, male.
5. Discussion
Author Contributions
Funding
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
References
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N | Organisation | Role | Contribution |
---|---|---|---|
4 | Regional Council of Lapland | Members of the program board, funding authority, developer organisation | Creation of specialisation, S3 participation and implementation, actions relations to policy instrument, subprojects and thematic platforms |
2 | University of Lapland | Project and cluster management | The direction of the project, coordination and development of Arctic design cluster |
4 | University of Applied Sciences | Cluster management and member of program board, developer organisation | Coordination and development of Arctic safety and Arctic development environments clusters, relation between specialised areas and funding opportunities |
3 | Centre for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment | Funding authority, network and innovation cooperation | Clusters vs. innovation project, cluster building and regional strengths and funding |
2 | Rural advisory services | Cluster management, developer organisation | Coordination and development of Arctic rural network cluster, cooperation with entrepreneurs |
2 | Development centers | Cluster management and program collaboration, developer organisation | Coordination and development of Arctic industry and circular economy cluster, value chains and cooperation with companies |
3 | Representatives of enterprises | Emerging industries, organisation of entrepreneurs and company collaborating in cluster activities | Needs of entrepreneurs, needs and future directions of health sector, willingness of companies to join cluster activities |
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Kangas, R.; Aarrevaara, T. Higher Education Institutions as Knowledge Brokers in Smart Specialisation. Sustainability 2020, 12, 3044. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12073044
Kangas R, Aarrevaara T. Higher Education Institutions as Knowledge Brokers in Smart Specialisation. Sustainability. 2020; 12(7):3044. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12073044
Chicago/Turabian StyleKangas, Riikka, and Timo Aarrevaara. 2020. "Higher Education Institutions as Knowledge Brokers in Smart Specialisation" Sustainability 12, no. 7: 3044. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12073044