This panel session will discuss the importance of collaboration to accelerate innovation. Innovation is widely recognized as a key driver of economic growth and is vital to enhancing wealth accumulation, employment creation, and productivity. The past two decades have proven the pivotal role of innovation in bringing about economic development In fact, the build-up of innovation and entrepreneurial capacities have played a central role in the growth dynamics of high-income countries.
Innovation is, however, not an end in itself. The ultimate objective of innovation policies is the achievement of economic or social development targets, such as growth, job creation, enhanced productivity and income, higher quality of life, and decreased inequalities. Advancing innovation is an instrument for the achievement of such objectives, as well as a contribution to the fulfilment of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda. As the world moves towards a future guided by the SDGs, a strong focus is placed on building collaboration with the public and private sectors, north to south, south to south to foster jobs and opportunities for all, advancing technology and innovation and addressing sustainability.
The panel has three main objectives:
- To draw greater attention to the importance of mutual partnership in fostering partnership to accelerate innovation and entrepreneurship
- To underline the role of innovation and collaboration as a means to achieve SDGs
- To understand various models that foster collaboration which enforces re-thinking of our approaches and strategies
- To identify and share best practices when it comes to effective, timely and scalable innovation examples across different sectors towards addressing SDGs
Teamwork is essential to getting things done. In today's global and digital 24/7 world, challenges are more complex; it's becoming increasingly important to bring more, diverse minds to the table and to break down silos.Collaboration is one type of group activity familiar to community development. There is no shortage of initiatives intended to be collaborative. Collaboration has never been easy, mostly because conflict and competition within and among groups dominate the landscape. As everyone tends to avoid tension, what we actually may be left within communities is peaceful (or less than peaceful) coexistence and not collaboration. It may be a good time to re-thinking collaboration. How could new approaches to collaboration influence the economic transformation of a community, state or nation? Roschelle and Teasley define collaboration more specifically as “mutual engagement of participants in a coordinated effort to solve a problem together”. Collaboration involves three basic aspects: relationships, process and outcomes. Collaboration means to work together (relationships) toward (process) something in common (outcomes). It is often repeated that collaborative relationships are important because it takes more than one person, group or organization to address challenges. Relationships developed across sectors, disciplines and areas of study and practice may yield greater returns.
Tangible goals of collaboration include building affordable housing, supporting enterprise creation, STEM education, creating job opportunities and bringing high-speed Internet to rural areas. Many collaboratives seek to describe an issue or reach a consensus. A collaborative process is more than working together. It means the ability to think and act on complex projects together. The traditional strategic planning process may not be a model for the disciplines required to transform our economies now. Thinking together opens the door for innovation and seeing the problem differently. An important outcome of collaboration could be to create new measures of success in economic development. Re-thinking collaboration means finding how intellectual efforts, like mobilizing the creative capital of each individual, can generate value for the community.
Expected outcomes:The session is intended to have the following outcomes:
- Stir a need for intentional collaboration and partnership among the audience to cascade innovation
- Greater attention and resources for effective and trustworthy collaboration to accelerate innovation and entrepreneurship
- Mobilization of multiple stakeholders with audience members left with an understanding
- of the role that different stakeholders across society (at the individual, institutional, and
- macro/systems level) can take to ensure better public discourse on intentional collaboration.
