Survey on the Effectiveness of Place for Innovation

Recently, more and more companies and organizations are setting up places for innovation such as innovation centers. At the same time, there is operational issues that make it difficult to evaluate them. In light of these issues, Future Center Alliance Japan (FCAJ) created a tool EMIC(Evaluation Model for Innovation Centers) to evaluate innovation sites and suggest effective management methods.

Now FCAJ and Keio University Graduate School will conduct a joint research on the effects of innovation centers, future centers, living labs and other places for open innovation. The purpose of this survey is to investigate what factors of places contribute successful innovation. We will conduct a survey on the strategic and actual status of innovation centers etc. on a global scale and share the results with relevant stakeholders. We’ve already received survey responses from 64 sites in Japan.

Your answers will be processed statistically, and no individual names or organizations will be identified. It will take approximately 15 minutes to complete.

The survey targets companies, governments, universities, and research institutes that operate the "place" for innovation.
We sincerely appreciate your cooperation in this survey.

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[Survey form] Please answer questionnaire on your email.

[EMIC] Please see the attachment for an overview of EMIC.

EMIC (Evaluation Model for Innovation Center) 2019 Summary Report

[FCAJ] https://futurecenteralliance-japan.org/en-about

[Keio University Graduate School] https://www.keio.ac.jp/en/academics/graduate/

EMIC (Evaluation Model for Innovation Center) 2019

Research Background

In the midst of the global economic crisis and the changing society, ‘innovation’ has become the key for corporate activities. It is essential for any company to obtain abilities to explore new opportunities and technologies, create new concepts and market with new business models in an agile manner to remain sustainable. Innovation will not occur with traditional business systems and workplaces that only focus on existing businesses. That is the context of why so many companies have been investing in creative/innovative spaces such as innovation centers, future centers, innovation labs, garages, and living labs, etc. to gain return from the Ba for innovation. Innovation center here means not just hardware like physical space, but it also includes a wide range of programs such as CVC and awards. Skills and tools such as Design Thinking and/or Lean Startup are also important factors.

One of the common challenges of these type of innovative space and programs is how to measure impact/results, which could be either tangible and intangible. According to some research, even though the number of innovation centers are growing rapidly worldwide, many of them do not produce satisfactory results. With these problem recognitions, we, FCAJ have suggested guidelines for strategizing, designing and operationalizing innovation centers as “Ba”. This research project aims to suggest a valid model and a hypothetical evaluation metrics for the relationship between innovation place and innovation management.

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Research Scope

1.Consistency between the place of 2 innovation (Ba) and the corporate
strategy and organization: "Location
(role) of Ba"

The gap between expectations for and outcomes from innovation centers partly comes from lack of clear innovation strategies/policies and the ambiguity of the positioning of innovation centers. As the international standard of innovation management system (ISO 56002) was published in 2019, it should serve as a common language for innovation management. It is important to clearly define the position, scope and role of the innovation space.

2. The qualitative function and role of Innovation Center (Ba): "Power of Ba "

In terms of the role of the innovation center aligned with the company's strategy, how does the innovation center create the appropriate internal and external relationships and consisten- cy of policy and practice?

The following three points will assist in identi- fying the gap between the perception and the reality.

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1. Relationship between the place and the organization

2. Capabilities and Assets of Ba

3. Relationship between Ba, external stakeholders and society

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Evaluation Model for Innovation Centers

What do we do at innovation space? What should be done there? Innovation Center is not a mere facility for workshops, but a place for programs in practice that drive innovation = “Ba.” When innovation is not produced at Innovation Center, it is not because of lack of ideas, but it means it does not work as a system that consists of resources, passionate people, , culture, and tangible/ intangible incentives. This means that it is more important for program organizers to conduct a series of programs through connecting ideas inside and outside of the organization than to satisfy workshop participants and/or care about convenience of the space. The overall notion is showed in Figure 1.

The place of innovation, or “Ba” is also regarded important by ISO56002. Chapter 7.1.6.2, which is about infrastructure to support innovation, contains creative environments, research and development labs, maker spaces, simulation labs, and living labs(. Figure 2)It is recommended to set KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) by developing a hypothesis about how these place of innovation is related to and interacts with other factors of an innovation management system.

There are two factors that contribute to the success of innovation centers: hardware and software. Hard- ware, space design is effective in branding the centers and facilitating stakeholders’ behavior, but it is not sufficient condition to drive innovation. The more important factor is if the place functions as “Ba” to enable innovation. Place managers must ensure that the place aligns with the innovation strategy and remove any obstructive factors. They also must improve the level of place because, innovation is the activity of changing the future through overcoming the resistance and skepticism that block the way forward. Therefore, it is indispensable to look at if the company has established management objectives, strategies, capabilities, awareness of stakeholders, relationships with others and management indicators (KGIs and KPIs) appropriate for a place for intellectual combat.

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EMIC Framework

As previously mentioned, innovation centers should be evaluated if it connects people and knowledge internally and externally, facilitates knowledge creation and exchange, and produce impacts vis a vis its objectives.

EMIC is an evaluation model developed to examine both hardware and software factors that are essential for innovation centers to function through verification of whether the objectives, strategies, and its implementation are aligned with the place = “Ba”. Nowadays, organizations from both public and private sectors show strong interest in Open Innovation 2.0. EMIC has also its bass on Open Innovation 2.0, which focuses on the interrelationship between “Ba” connecting inside the organization and outside the organization. The model consists of 12 elements, which builds an ecosystem as a whole.

Urgent Proposal for the Global Society After & During the Era of COVID-19

By Prof. Emeritus I. Nonaka, Hitotsubashi Univ. and Dr. H. Koizumi, The Engineering Academy of Japan

Shift from "Egoism" to "Altruism"&"Sympathy "

Incorporated Association FCAJ-Future Center Alliance Japan：Representative Executive Director Dr.N.Konno proudly delivers "the Joint Declaration" to point out the future society after &during the era of COVID-19 by both Professor Emeritus I.Nonaka, Hitotsubashi University, and Dr. H. Koizumi, The Engineering Academy of Japan, as a special advisor of FCAJ. This content is based on the Zoom Webinar on 21 April and 3 May 2020.

Urgent Proposal

We want to express our sincere condolences for the loved ones of those who passed away due to this pandemic. We are concerned that COVID-19 will have a severe impact on not only medical care, medical science, politics, and the economy but also the thoughts and life for the human being. The Leaders of organizations are required to ask themselves, "What is the purpose of our business?" and moreover, "Is our business in an ethical way?".

We believe that everyone in society must have "the power of conceptual imagination" and should invest their efforts based on "Altruism" and "Sympathy" for a promising future. For that purpose, we declare the importance of building “Plural Sector” to provide “Ba” , a place in Japanese, for open dialog across the sectors: private, academy, public, and people.

1)Need for Wise Leadership and Ethics by Professor Emeritus Ikujiro Nonaka

The significant impact of COVID-19 will never make our society the same as it was again, as some say there will be a New Normal. In such a chaotic and changing society, leadership with practical wisdom to make judgments based on the “common good” is becoming ever more critical to build a brighter future. Wise leadership is based on sympathy with people, things, and surroundings “now and here.” This wise leadership is to find the breakthrough in a real-life place and situation,Gemba in Japanese, with the sympathy and practice what he or she commits to do systematically and autonomously. Leaders should concentrate on building the network of wisdom, involving the power of grass-roots, toward “common good” to overcome self-interest. In Japan, there have been many leaders with practical wisdom such as Eiichi Shibusawa, who had advocated to integrate Altruism and Egoism for business and society. We should reconstruct and deliver with scrum, Japan-originated ways such as Three-way-satisfaction for the customer and the community and the company.

IKUJIRO NONAKA

Professor Emeritus Professor, Hitotsubashi University, Member of The Japan Academy He is known as the authority of knowledge management who spread the theory of knowledge creation to the world. In 2002, he was awarded the Medal with Purple Ribbon, and is the first Asian to be elected a Fellow in the American Management Society.He was only one selected from Asia "The most influential business thinkers Top 20" in the Wall Street Journal. His books include Essence of Failure, Management of Knowledge Creation, Business Model Innovation, Essence of Intellectual Maneuverability and many others. -Photo by Yuko Yamaguchi

2)Shift from Egoism to “Altruism” by Dr. Hideaki Koizumi

If we approach the pandemic wrongly, it could be a tragic human-made disaster. “Integrity” is the key to preventing a “Failure of Logic.” We have to treat the pandemic as a natural phenomenon and as part of human evolution and the diversity of creatures, with an evidence-based, not arbitrary approach. From the perspective of “Human Security and Well-Being,” a new ecosystem bridging natural science, humanities, social science, and arts, is needed and is triggered by this incident. Although egoism is spreading in the world recently, the pandemic would remind us of modesty, gratitude, and nobleness across nations and races. “Altruism,” which we have lost long ago, now becomes glorious, and we recognize that “warm-heartedness” to sympathize with others leads us to happiness. The death of an individual is discontinuous in life, but human existence is continuous. Innovation itself follows the logic of “Continuity of Discontinuities.” Each innovation is a transition of discontinuity, but societal innovation emerges “continually,” and it makes human beings affluent. After the pandemic of COVID-19, I heartily wish we would build a better future.

HIDEAKI KOIZUMI

Executive Vice president of The Engineering Academy of Japan. Director of International Council of Academies of Engineering and Technological Sciences, Fellow/Board member of the Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology of the University of Tokyo, Honorary Fellow of Hitachi,Ltd. and many others. He created many new principles in the fields of environment and medicine and proposed a new field called "science of mind and brain" as a pioneer. Received 3 Okouchi Awards and 2 US R&D 100 Awards. Major publications; Einstein's Inverse Omega -Thinking about Education from the Evolution of the Brain, History of the Brain-From Freud to Brain Map, MRI, Brain Grows through Encounters and many.

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【PDF】Urgent Proposal for the Global Society After & During the Era of COVID-19

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