Chasing the Power of Innovation

– We do not need a new business policy for old industries we need an innovation policy for new industries, said Øystein Eriksen Søreide, CEO of Abelia when he opened their event at Marineholmen in Bergen yesterday.

Trine Ellingsen general manager of FIN - the association for innovation companies set the scene by asking:

“How will Norway become a world leader in sustainable marine economy and is Norwegian innovation policy rigged for future business development or are we lagging behind”?

– Think globally from day one, answered Kathrine Myhre, Deputy Chairman of the Board of the Norwegian Export Strategy Council.

Look to Sweden

The world’s most-innovative economy in 2021 is Switzerland followed by Sweden according to the newly released Global Innovation index and Myhre urged all participants to “google” the index, which shows that Norway is lagging behind in several areas including, graduates in science and engineering, labour productivity growth and creative goods exports.

Gøran Marklund, director of Innova spoke about Swedens perfect storm of societal changes that needs to be addressed by systemic measures like transformative innovation policy which EU is taking clear steps towards through several programmes like Horizon Europe, green deal etc.

– In its proposals for the government's research and innovation policy, Vinnova has argued strongly that Sweden must have an innovation policy that focuses on clear missions - ambitious goals that provide a powerful direction throughout the system and that are characterized by transdisciplinary cooperation, said Marklund.

System innovation is a horizontal policy approach to combine technologies and social innovations to tackle problems that are systemic in nature; such as sustainable housing, e-mobility, health care; it involves many actors outside of government (as well as different levels of governments) and takes a longer term view.

Vinnova has implemented initiatives and clarified how they will be better in system innovation by establishing a completely new way of working in 2021, changing processes and management structure.

Collaboration is King

Scantrol Deep Vision is a small family business which is constantly developing and innovating.

– Sustainable solutions has been our main focus for a long time, said Hege Hammersland Business Development Manager at Scantrol Deep Vision during the panel debate, where actors from both sides of the policy instruments participated.

One must have a long perspective for the development of underwater technology, according to Hammersland. The company has been on a 100 cruises to test their solution - a subsea vision system for identifying and measuring fish under water.

– The only way we can do this is to collaborate with research communities and other companies, said Hammersland who also pleaded that we strengthen the important ocean clusters, and gaze across regions and national borders.

A wall of representatives from ocean clusters and catapults spoke for collaboration and breaking down silos both between industries and clusters through innovation projects like “Oil and Gas Meets Aquaculture” a collaboration project between GCE Ocean Technology and NCE Seafood Innovation to increase technology transfer both ways.

The clusters exist to help develop the good solutions and contribute to change, knowledge sharing and innovation and to help navigate through tricky funding schemes.

Collaboration is king and there should be more incentives that promote collaboration within-, and across borders, the panel agreed.