Open foresight in the front end of systemic innovations

Systemic innovations are characterized as involving the collaboration of different actors that orchestrate to create new markets/solution at the intersection of traditional industries. Interest in how to promote collaborative innovation—and systemic innovations in particular—is increasing. Firstly, because the most promising innovation spaces are complex and cannot be effectively explored and exploited by one actor alone. Secondly, because society’s grand challenges require that multiple for-profit actors, operating in dynamic regulatory environments, act in an orchestrated fashion.
In this paper we develop a conceptual framework that takes as a point of departure in the barriers to systemic innovations, with a focus on the front end of the innovation process. In addition, we leverage on literature on strategic foresight to propose, conceptually, how to overcome the barriers. Finally, we use the barriers/solutions framework to reflect on a case application, the EU-Interreg project PERISCOPE that aims to catalyze “Blue Growth” in the maritime and marine industries. We report on the tools and processes deployed in the project and report on their performance.