The following is an “open letter” to the readers of the PASCAL website.  This follows my reading of a white paper (Open Innovation 2.0: A New Paradigm) composed by Martin Curley and Bror Salmelin, which I shared in a posting on 15 July.

In the above paper, Open Innovation 2.0 (OI2) is presented as an advanced iteration of an approach that has been developing over the past several years.  The traditional approach to innovation was more private and unilateral (service to a customer) whereas OI2 stresses co-creative processes that involve developers and end-users of products and services.  By way of an example, the authors reference Procter & Gamble’s “Connect+Develop” initiative, whereby P&G openly broadcasts the “open problems” that it wants to solve.  Innovators are thereby prompted to offer solutions and even participate in development processes.

As a networked organization, PASCAL speaks in terms of creating strong links between higher education and three strands of society within sub-national regions: the public, private, and NGO sectors.  The perennial (and ever evolving) question is this: What are the most pressing open problems shared within and across a region, and who are the people willing to cross boundaries to create the social capital that triggers innovation?

I would like to prompt readers to share (via comment) examples of higher education institutions that do an excellent job of drawing attention to the open problems in their service regions, and then mobilize innovative regional development processes. 

Perhaps PASCAL can link some of these HE-based exemplars of “open innovation,” spark a short exchange, and then report on what these exemplars have in common and what they can learn from each other. 

I would be happy to help convene such an exchange.  If you are interested, please contact with me by replying to this posting or by writing to: [email protected].