Regional Innovative Capacity

The Regional Innovative Capacity professorship studies the manner in which entrepreneurs innovate their companies and the extent to which the environment (the regional innovation ecosystem) is able to strengthen the innovative capacity of companies. Knowledge is exchanged through collaboration and sharing outcomes which ensures all parties of the ecosystem learn from one another. This strengthens the innovative capacity of companies and the region.

The professorship’s focus

For the coming years the focus of the professorship lies on the following:

• How companies determine to innovate and the role the regional innovation ecosystem plays in doing so.
• Evaluating the extent to which the regional innovation ecosystem truly stimulates the innovation of companies whilst paying attention to the role governments and knowledge institutions such as Hanze University of Applied Sciences play.
• The development of interventions, instruments and new knowledge based on the findings from the above that lead to strengthening  business innovation as well as the ecosystem.

The role family business play in the ecosystem

The Regional Innovative Capacity professorship studies the specific role family businesses have in the ecosystem. Seeing as family businesses are deeply rooted within their region, they play an important role in the development of their surroundings. The professorship studies the role owners of family businesses play or should play within the ecosystem and the conditions that come to play.

Collaboration with (family) businesses

The Regional Innovative Capacity professorship invites (family) businesses to collaborate with one another in such a way that they can strengthen the innovative capacity of businesses in the region. Questions that come to play:

• What visions and which values are needed for an entrepreneur to innovate their business? How is this translated to the organization and what kind of innovations can this lead to?
• How do entrepreneurs achieve personal development? What role do networks play and what’s the role of learning from other business entrepreneurs?
• How do entrepreneurs find the time to keep up with external developments?
• How do entrepreneurs make optimal use of the talents of their employees, the available resources and technologies to achieve innovation?
• How can entrepreneurs organise their business to create space for learning and innovation, while also ensuring the successful implementation or commercialisation of innovations?
• Why and how should entrepreneurs determine whether or not to engage in an innovation network actively and what factors play a role in the decision making process?  Does reciprocal learning come into play?
• What is the added value of an innovation network for one’s business?
• What role does an entrepreneur have in the ecosystem and how does this relate to other stakeholders of the ecosystem?
• What design criteria contribute to an ecosystem with impact?
• What are the regional/ local environmental factors that influence the ecosystem and its surrounding networks?
• Do ecosystems contribute to societal welfare or solely to economic welfare?
• What impact do you wish to achieve with an ecosystem? Which priorities are set by entrepreneurs and policy makes?

Collaboration partners

The professorship works in close collaboration with the following other professorships, research centres and Centres of Expertise of Hanze University:

• Centre of Expertise Entrepreneurship: professorships Human Capital, Leadership and Sustainable Employment, Organizational Design and Change, and Legal Aspects of Entrepreneurship.
• Centre for Talent, Teaching and Learning: research group Reciprocity in learning networks
• Research Centre for Built Environment - NoorderRuimte
• Research Centre Biobased Economy
• ENTRANCE - Centre of Expertise Energy
• Centre of Expertise Healthy Ageing