Opening Our Innovation Ecosystems to All: The INTEGER Project Case Study

Quadruple Helix open innovation ecosystems are gaining relevance as they incorporate different actors with different perspectives, contributing significantly to the development of social innovation communities that are more responsive to today’s social and environmental challenges. The Horizon Europe INTEGER project aims to better understand how social and economic innovation actors can be effectively integrated into European innovation ecosystems to address critical sustainability challenges. An exploratory and qualitative study was conducted, using three different focus groups (partners, stakeholders, and driving group) and analysing the intra- and inter-regional health and wellbeing ecosystems of three European regions (Krakow, Hamburg, and Catalonia). The results propose a systemic model based on a new generation of Living Labs, called Collaboratories, that involves the actors of social and economic innovation and facilitates a holistic understanding of the interconnected dimensions of the ecosystem, where all the dimensions interact to drive sustainable impact. In addition, this study highlights the key role of the facilitator who guides the group process from the beginning to the achievement of the objective, as well as the adaptation when it comes to scaling and replication, as each ecosystem has a particular level of maturity.