Ecosystems such as Silicon Valley in California have long been renowned for driving local innovation. Substantial research effort has gone into understanding the reasons for this, and attempts have been made to recreate these achievements in other regions around the world and within Europe. High-quality education systems leading to large pools of graduates, well funded research programmes, access to financial and human resources, and a culture of philanthropy all play a role in creating social and technical innovations in such regions. While research has gained extensive insights into the interrelationship between technological change and innovation in ecosystems (e.g., Adner & Kapoor 2010), digital infrastructures (see Constantinides et al. 2018) play a crucial role in amplifying the development of innovation ecosystems. Open access to (research) data and applications stimulate entrepreneurial activities by enabling new and easing existing forms of data-intensive value creation and value delivery. Particularly in healthcare, we see access to research data and highly specialized applications being a major driver of innovation within and across ecosystems. 

This interactive panel will discuss the role that open data infrastructures such as ELIXIR play in supporting innovation ecosystems to thrive. It will show that Europe is home to both successful data infrastructures, and thriving innovation ecosystems. Moderated by Prof. Hannes Rothe; experts from SMEs, investors and the data-providing infrastructures will give their perspective on where and how Europe is strong, and what can be done to replicate this to other regions. We will present examples from the various different ecosystems.

See https://www.esof.eu/en/programme/programme-event-list-all-events/event-information/open-data-infrastructures-a-driver-for-innovation-ecosystems.html

About ESOF

ESOF was created by EuroScience in 2004. It is the largest interdisciplinary meeting on science and innovation in Europe, for and with society.