Launch of a Franco-Swiss research project to promote open innovation for small and medium-sized enterprises!

Economic diversity is the strength of our region. Together, in the Franco-Swiss cross-border area, we are betting on stimulating open innovation by involving small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in a process of reflection on possible futures (foresight).

The IOP(Innovation Ouverteet Prospective) project targets SMEs active in the digital and social economy(French definition; Swiss definition).

What is open innovation? Open innovation is an innovation process involving all an organization's internal resources as well as its external ecosystem.

Both the digital economy and the social economy are booming business sectors. SMEs in both types of economy are innovating, but in different ways. Collaboration, inherent to SSE companies, and technological innovation, omnipresent in the digital economy, are the two modes of innovation we wish to study, and which have contributed to the choice of these sectors.

Funded as part of the Interreg - France-Switzerland 2014-2020 program, the project brings together some twenty players from the academic and professional worlds in three territories - Haute-Savoie, the canton of Vaud and the canton of Geneva - for a 29-month period, from October 2018 to March 2021.

The project aims to create and set up a digital platform for collaborative foresight to exchange ideas and encourage the development of open innovation projects.

The wide range of players involved, its cross-border dimension and the dynamics in which this project is developing make it a solid and constructive approach for the region and its economic fabric.

Your contacts if you are interested in the project :

• Dr Romain Gandia, Senior Lecturer, Université Savoie Mont Blanc, 4 Chemin de Bellevue, 74944 Annecy-Le-Vieux / romain.gandia@univ-smb.fr
• Dr. Catherine Equey, Professor HES, Haute Ecole de Gestion de Genève, Bâtiment B, Campus de Battelle, 17 rue de la Tambourine, 1227 Carouge - Switzerland / catherine.equey@hesge.ch