The building blocks enable a transformation
* (We use KKN here but see it as broadly synonymous with Cultural and Creative Sectors, FGM, and Cultural and Creative Industries, KKB).
team is an innovation policy platform for Culture and Creative Industries (KKN) * where actors from all over Europe work on behalf of European Commission. Work is organized in a process called”team Policy Engine” and in the recommendations given from team addresses and describes the building blocks needed for successful innovation work in an ecosystem. The building blocks — Innovation building blocks - concerns everything from financing to the availability of infrastructure for innovation and different types of innovation support.
- Within team have we needed to find a common basis for our work so that we can collaborate across different innovation areas and across different industries and geographical boundaries, says Katarina Scott, Future by Lund. This is important because the participants come from all over Europe and also have different starting points linguistically and culturally.
Innovation building blocks structure which parts of a system are important in order to build the whole needed to transform an area. This could be, for example, resources, infrastructure and knowledge.
- Innovation building blocks are about looking at what ingredients are needed in an innovation ecosystem, continues Katarina Scott. This is a classic way for policymakers or management to work to ensure that all elements exist, for development and transformation linked to an innovation team, but it can also be relevant in other contexts, such as when you want to build an innovation district that is attractive from a broad perspective for cross-border innovation work.
By looking at the building blocks, it is possible to clarify whether certain pieces are missing in a system, see areas where the ecosystem is strong, or discover resources that exist but are not visible, such as labs or test sites that could become available to more people.
When the forum Unexpec arranged in Lund told Charlotte Lorentz Hjorth, Lund University and project manager for team, about how some different building blocks have been activated for the work with innovation portfolios within KKN in Lund Innovation District. Portfolio Kalaudioscope — Personalized Digital Live Experiences which deals with personalized digital live concerts, have used concert halls as testing venues for innovation. Portfolio Fashion & Textile transformation, where initiatives that make the textile industry more sustainable come together, has drawn on a new network of researchers across nine faculties at Lund University. Portfolio Archeology, cultural heritage, and immersive technology works on making historical data available in different cultural contexts and for that, testing the use of new communication technologies to create experiences for many senses. Here, various events are used as test venues.
- It takes a lot of ability to create environments where cooperation is natural, respectful and forward-looking and where we interact in a good way, says Charlotte Lorentz Hjorth. An important element of innovation work is always to have resources, but it should be remembered that the resources may be in a place where you are not looking. Resources can be to make available one of the university's labs, it can be sensors or the ability to make DPP tags and it can be a network of experts with crucial knowledge of live concerts. By bringing resources together and showcasing them together in a thematic area, a portfolio, the area becomes more investable and a greater interest can be aroused.
One resource that played an important role was when Riksteatern Crea wanted to create a sign language speaking avatar for a set of The Ghost in Canterville in the spring of 2025 was Lund University Humanities Laboratory. The ghost is created in real time through a combination of different techniques that read off the movements of a sign language-speaking actor. The Humanist Laboratory was involved in enabling the solution and became an important building block in the innovation work. By being a building block in an innovation ecosystem, not only new innovations were made possible, but the research lab also created opportunities for researchers to use the technology developed, in this case for language research.
- Universities have many lab infrastructures that are not always so accessible, but if we work together they could be used more systematically as important building blocks in the innovation ecosystem, says Charlotte Lorentz Hjorth.
Lars Mattiasson is a project manager with many years of experience in the textile industry. Based on this knowledge, a very complex portfolio with many partners has been carved out to investigate how to create a sustainable textile industry. Lars Mattiasson attaches great importance to investigating which building blocks are needed in an ecosystem to be able to make unexpected cross-connections that enable new solutions.
- The portfolio deals with many issues, operates in many layers and includes many partners, continues Charlotte Lorentz Hjorth. We will be setting up a digital product passport testbed, the DPP, to understand how we can use this new technology to deploy in garments and fabrics to create traceability. With traceability comes the ability to create a circular manufacturing industryin.
To demonstrate how DPP can work, all visitors to Unexpected received a 3D-printed copy of Völundmycket, a find in Uppåkra from the Viking Age — and showed not only opportunities for the textile industry but also a storytelling that can enrich experiences of archaeology and cultural heritage. This showed how KKN can step in and be an enabler of cross-connections and new combinations and even be the one who stands for the storytelling of innovation portfolios and partnerships.
Another resource is models and tools. Lund University and Future by Lund have worked on The Liept model together, where methods from several actors create a whole to be able to follow the development and attractiveness of innovation portfolios.
- There are many tools that help us collaborate in a good way. Among other things, we use the OPSI model from the OECD, which makes it possible to map an innovation effort and provides opportunities to discover that a partnership can be started. In our projects we also have developed a canvas, which provides a way of working that can help, for example, a city, a network or organizations to launch innovation portfolios.
In connection with the work on Innovation building blocks, it has been shown that it is important to keep different policies separate. In cultural policy, we often talk about individual artists, works and sets that receive support in different ways. In innovation policy, it is more about what is created and how it can be scaled up to innovations. Cultural policy is thus tied to artistic creation while innovation policy is about what we do that can be scaled and multiplied.
- An unexpected result within team is that we clearly see the tension and shifting logic between culturpoliticy and innovationpolititicy. This also gives us opportunities. If we can use them both together so that, for example, the performing arts can be test beds for new technologies, we may have found a new superpower. Then we simply get more building blocks to work with in the innovation ecosystem,” concludes Charlotte Lorentz Hjorth.
(Here you can read more about “Innovation by Production“)