As new types and sources of innovation appear, new knowledge and competencies are required. Natural science and technology has for decades been the dominating knowledge base for innovation. Science and technology will still be crucial, but far from sufficient. There is a need for deep and specialised knowledge to understand markets and user behaviour as sources of innovation. New technologies can enable companies to develop entirely new business models which open up unrecognised possibilities for co-creation, and the exploration of unsolved user needs can be an important source of innovation.

Access to high levels of knowledge is fundamental to the innovation capacity of companies. On the one hand, knowledge needs to be specialised. On the other hand, radical insights can be gained by combining different disciplines, as multidisciplinary approaches to solving new needs become more and more essential to innovative solutions.

5 policy actions are suggested:

1. New knowledge institutions or transformed institutions
2. Research
3. Education
4. Facilitating knowledge sharing
5. Global perspective

Suggested policy actions:

1. New knowledge institutions or transformed institutions

Government should:

• Provide financial support to research-based universities and other educational institutions contingent on the establishment of new multidisciplinary research and educational institutions and collaboration between existing institutions.
• Prioritize areas such as social science, human science and arts which previously were not considered crucial to innovation, but which will be very important in the future.

2. Research

Government should:

• Support research and activities in specialised areas important for dealing with new forms of innovation.
• Prioritize investment in various research disciplines to strengthen the emergence of specialized regional knowledge hubs in the global knowledge economy.
• Facilitate global partnerships and network activities, and consider loosening the national restrictions applied for government-funded research programmes, for instance introducing collaborative R&D credits across borders.
• Re-design the assistance provided to domestic firms looking to expand abroad – from mainly export and sales support to more network, knowledge-sharing activities with a wide range of players in other countries.

3. Education

Government should:

• Provide new education programmes based on the latest research, targeting competencies needed in new forms of innovation.

4. Facilitating knowledge sharing

Government should:

• Establish new multidisciplinary knowledge transfer initiatives, which can serve as a bridge uniting research institutes and private companies.
• Provide services to firms and users in order to enhance user-involvement (such as guidelines for user involvement in the innovation process).
• Regulate intellectual property rights so that they address the increasing importance of partnerships and collaboration. There is a need for new and better possibilities for agreements in the beginning of a partnership innovation process. Governments could also take initiatives to unify universities’ and public labs’ procedures and habits in IPR to strengthen partnerships and collaborations between the public and private sector. It could also be discussed if there are areas where there is a need for strengthening the possibility of obtaining protection and areas where it would encourage innovation to move towards open source.
• Continue to support entrepreneurial activities in order to strengthen the dynamism between innovative start-ups and multinational companies within global knowledge hubs.
• Facilitate the creation of ecosystems around knowledge hubs by encouraging and strengthening corporate entrepreneurship activities, such as partnership agreements between large and small firms.
• Diffuse knowledge on excellent innovation management.

5. Global perspective

Government should:

• Identify ways they could support the free movement of knowledge workers.
• Consider introducing programmes that increase ethnic diversity.