Chapter 5. Policies for better ecosystems of innovation

Introduction

The previous chapters have already discussed the important role of policies in hindering or enabling the engagement of schools in innovation ecosystems. Local, regional and central governments play a very powerful role in creating the conditions for schools to engage in innovation ecosystems. Innovating schools and engaging with the local economy requires navigating regulatory frameworks, accountability systems and policy conditions. Public policy can also create opportunities for developing local and regional ecosystems of innovation.

Policies intervene in many of the components, dimensions and steps involved in the process of innovation. They can hinder or facilitate the openness of schools to their local environments, the opportunities school leaders have to engage in partnerships and networking, the decision-making and governance arrangements for schools, etc. They also determine various dimensions of the education system that create the conditions for openness, such as the competences required from teachers, the autonomy of schools, the regulation of the time and space for learning, the objectives set for learning, the curriculum, and the teaching methods and pedagogies for learning.

Policies for better innovation ecosystems will also require horizontal collaboration between education ministries and other parts of central and local government, such as those responsible for research and development (R&D), general economic and social policy, and trade unions and collective bargaining. Taking a broad perspective on networking and innovation ecosystems also means that cultural policy and policies affecting social services and local community organisations at large enter the picture. A whole-of-government approach will be needed to create coherent and consistent framework conditions for innovation.

But the word “policies” should not suggest that only governments and public authorities have a role to play. Developing innovation ecosystems is a task and a responsibility for all actors and agents of change in the community. Schools, enterprises and community organisations all have role to play by becoming the focal points of the collective energy of change in the learning and innovation ecosystem at large.

What schools can do

Regional growth and city development have become important policy objectives for central, regional and local government in many countries, especially for depressed regions. Supra-national bodies, such as the European Union, are also very interested in regional development, in order to mitigate economic and social inequalities and to boost overall innovation. However, although the traditional policy instruments chosen, such as investments in infrastructure, network connectivity or transport, make sense in many places, they are often not well suited to the specific challenges and opportunities of a knowledge-based economy.

Too often, education, schools, skills and human capital in general are overlooked in regional and local development and innovation policies. Even when education and skills are part of the policy mix, consideration is often confined to universities, which are expected to play a regional innovation role through their research and development functions in technology. However, schools in general, including primary and secondary schools, vocational training institutes, and organisations for non-formal education, can be very important and effective partners in regional and local renewal.

First, they make up the educational infrastructure that takes care of learning, educational qualifications, workforce training, skills development and broader cultural learning. The educational infrastructure of a region produces the knowledge and skills on which the regional economy depends. They deliver the qualified workforce for regional industry and business. The quality of education provided filters down through the workplace via their graduates, but also through apprenticeships and fieldwork placements, or through various kinds of practical assignments in project-based learning.

Second, and equally important, schools and other educational institutions constitute critically important nodes in the social fabric of regional societies and local communities. They are places where families meet and network, where social capital and trust are generated and social cohesion is constructed. The quality of life in local communities depends on the strength and impact of educational institutions. Schools contribute to the development of regional and local identities, while at the same time also transmitting modern attitudes and values, including global awareness.

Third, and related to the previous two points, schools’ educational function and impact on the community can help to raise the level of aspiration among people, necessary for a sustainable process of change and innovation. An important dimension of change is that people believe that they can cope with it and can steer it if they have the right kind of cognitive and emotional tools. A well-educated population is critically important not only for knowledge-based change and innovation in the economy, but also for accepting and absorbing innovation into regional society and the many changes in the population’s lifeworld that come with innovation.

By opening up to local enterprises and communities, schools can reinforce their role in building strong and inclusive local societies and innovative economies. They can do this by providing free use of school infrastructure and facilities to local enterprises and community organisations, but also – and more interestingly – by actively involving the learning resources available in the local economic and social context in the learning process. The mutual benefit can be enormous, both to the learners who benefit from real-world challenges and learning opportunities and from the chance to serve the community, and to the enterprises and the community at large who profit from learners’ contributions.

Strengthening the role of schools in regional and local development requires schools themselves to become more innovative and dynamic, more specifically by innovating their pedagogical core and by turning into networking organisations in which connectivity to the surrounding environment becomes part of the educational mission. Networking and developing partnerships across the economy and community are an indispensable aspect of sustainable innovation in schools. Innovating schools, innovation in the regional economy and social innovation in the local community are not different from one another, but just different dimensions of the same process of transformation.

A strategy for schools to open up to businesses and the wider community is laid out in more practical terms in Box 5.1.

What businesses and communities can do

Local and regional learning and innovation ecosystems very much revolve around enterprises, businesses and not-for-profit organisations in the community. However, with a more holistic approach to innovation their success depends on their ability to create partnerships and networks with other agents of change. In an increasingly knowledge-based economy innovation will depend on the capacity of innovators to connect to and engage those institutions in the economy that produce, develop and disseminate knowledge and skills. Schools thus become the obvious partners.

As discussed in previous chapters, employers have a clear interest in working closely with schools and they are increasingly doing so. This is most obvious in the area of vocational education and training, where industry has a direct role – and interest – in establishing well-functioning partnerships with schools and training institutes. The provision of apprenticeships and workplace training is probably the single most important form of engagement for businesses. Industry will also play a natural role in defining skill needs and providing feedback on vocational education and training programmes, curricula and learning outcomes.

Enterprises and organisations also need education and training institutions to meet their own training and human resource development needs, often complementary to their own internal training and learning investments. Businesses are increasingly outsourcing training to specialised providers and schools are starting to develop their capacity to engage in the education and training market. When firms develop into real learning organisations, their human resource development needs will move beyond specific specialised knowledge and skills into broader skills-development demands, where schools can play a more important role. And, as shown in Box 4.3 in the previous chapter, businesses can gain many other, wide-ranging benefits from developing partnerships and networking with schools in their environment.

It is critically important that enterprises, with the support of intermediary bodies such as chambers of commerce or sector organisations, move beyond a purely utilitarian and instrumentalist approach and develop a strategic vision for networking with schools in a wider learning ecosystem development perspective. A learning and innovation ecosystem perspective might take more time to develop and to yield positive outcomes, but will ultimately lead to an environment that will be beneficial to business as well.

Not-for-profit organisations and associations in the local and regional community can also enhance and improve their networking and partnerships with schools, for example by intensifying their demand and opportunities for service-learning, fieldwork and applied research assignments. They can benefit from using school infrastructure more intensively after lessons finish or get involved in extracurricular activities.

For these organisations too, the immediate benefits are clear, but the longer-term systemic benefits might even be more relevant. The quality of life in the community depends on building relationships of social cohesion, trust and social capital and the associated cognitive, social and emotional skills that young people learn in actively performing these activities. Volunteering and community engagement is something that is learned, not given by nature.

Making regions agents of change

Regions support innovation to boost growth and improve quality of life. Innovation support is relevant for all regions, but an appropriate policy mix must be formulated. The questions are how to set priorities among possible avenues of innovation promotion, and how to design policies and implement an appropriate mix of instruments corresponding to defined priorities.

What can regions do? Regions are, or can be, agents of change. Regional governments play a key role in recognising opportunities for change, mobilising resources towards diversification and identifying new frontiers. However, this search for new regional advantages will require input and collaboration from the community at large. Regions can transform themselves by what some have termed “constructing their regional advantages”, based on a clear appraisal of their existing asset base and attraction of new talent and businesses. The focus of regional innovation policies should hence be on encouraging openness to change by agents in the system. Business support instruments should prioritise the development of human capital and learning processes, including cultivating behavioural change in people and firms.

The policy implications for learning cities and regions are summarised in Box 5.2.