From CREANOVA to RAINOVA a travel from creativity to innovation

From the very beginning, one of the main targets of TKNIKA, was to be a reference at an European level in the field of Innovation for VET and Lifelong Learning.

This challenge drove us to establish international relationships with different International Networks who are moving in this field. Networks like EFVET (European Forum of Technical Education and Vocational training) TA3 (Transatlantic Technology and Training Alliance) and WFCP (World Federation of Colleges and Polytechnics) , have been, and they are, very important for the steps we are given nowadays.

It is a pleasure for us to say that TKNIKA has launched into internazionalization through the participation in different projects. Some of them are projects built up around mobility of teachers who are working in different innovation projects, another one built around the mobility of teachers working in Entrepreneurship in the programmes EJE and URRATSBAT. But in this article I am going to refer to two very special projects. CREANOVA and RAINOVA.

CREANOVA

We are facing great changes in the educational system. Students and teachers have to adapt ourselves to new circumstances. We need to do things that we didn´t do before, and that is not so easy. There is always resistance to change.

Creativity and innovation are integral parts of the learning process. The Creanova project has shown that it is not always easy to differentiate between the two terms. In a broad sense creativity has been defined as the production of novel and useful ideas - doing something for the first time anywhere or creating new knowledge. Innovation was adoption or implementation of novel and useful ideas, encompassing adaptation of products or processes from outside an organization. The project produced a comprehensive theoretical overview document in 2010 called Discovering Vision.

Universities in The Basque Country, Finland, Scotland and Estonia together with learning specialists in Ireland, Italy, Germany and The Basque Country have been working for three years in defining and experimenting with the factors that support Creativity and Innovation in the educational system. The identification of good practices, the experimentation in four contries, the questionary on line to more than 400 wokforce and the 40 quality interviews to professsionals working in the fields of creative and industrial compamnies, brought results that can serve as the basis for recommendations and best practices for promoting creative learning and innovation.

Although not possible to prove working assumptions and hypotheses in a statistical sense, the qualitative data (experimental case study course & interviews) gave a strong indication that Need, Freedom, Interaction and Environment were important aspects for learners. Specifically, participants viewed the learning context as crucial. The data collected in the experimental case study courses gave content and meaning to these four factors which take part in the creativity as part of learning and presented solidity as a model that can be used by teachers and facilitators to arrange and guide learning and educational processes in a creative and innovative way. Strong qualitative data suggested that best practices that promote creativity/creative competence can be transferred, developed, adapted and adopted from one learning context to another, but that they have to be connected to local contexts in ways meaningful to participants.

The survey data, interviews and case studies confirmed the 4 factors originally identified by Discovering Vision. In the case of Need, this factor could not be statistically identified in the dataset, but its relevance was emphasized both in interviews and data collected in case studies. Respondents perceived the necessity of being creative as one of the most challenging motivators. While Survey data did not make explicit reference to learning, two new factors were identified: individual experience of creativity and individual experience of innovation.

Statistics confirmed the importance of factors that identified as important during the interview process. As in the interviews, statistics confirmed the suggestion in Discovering Vision that freedom and environment are connected and that creative and innovative practices do not occur in an abstract vacuum. The findings substantiated the work of writers who argue that creativity and innovation are hindered by hierarchy, simplification, uniformity and control associated with traditional industrial and school systems.

These results have been transferred to the policy makers and offer to them guidelines to introduce some of the ideas in the curricula. In the Basque Country, the results, and techniques used during the experiment: Bono´s six hats, story telling, ideart, learning in untraditional spaces, brainstorming, have been transferred to the teachers working in the programmes URRATSBAT and EJE
This should be the axe of any project: Research-Experiment-Conclusions-Transference and Recommendations.

RAINOVA

This project that will be leaded by TKNIKA during the following three years starting next January was approved by the European Commission in Brusels and takes into consideration the collaboration among different partners
The main target groups:

• Trainers, practitioners in VET and work-based learning institutions.
• Trainees and potential innovators in VET and other educational institutions.
• Providers of Continuous Professional Development (CPD) for VET.
• Associations of VET centres in Europe, Canada and China.
• Companies both who are developing innovative ideas and those who need to access innovation to grow.
• Entrepreneurs who prioritise innovation.
• Innovators generating new ideas in labour markets, research centres and universities.
• Innovation parks.

We recognise that these target groups are very broad but this is the very purpose of developing the Regional Innovation Networks. It is to bring together these groups, who in most regions are working alone and who are failing to benefit from the knowledge that each can provide to the other. For instance, new innovations are being developed by entrepreneurs but they don't have the access to the markets that could benefit from their innovations. VET Institutions are training the future workers for these companies but often don't know what new production processes are being developed which require new skills that their students can't access.

The main aim of the RAINOVA project is to encourage the development of Regional Innovation Systems for the regions represented by the project partners. This aim will be achieved through the following objectives:

1. To research the current situation in each region in terms of current innovation systems and strategies.
2. To design an Innovation Management Model that, as well as creating the flexibility required for each organisational and/or regional context, means that the challenge of innovation can be tackled in a more coordinated and intelligent way.
3. To draw up Action Plans for the implementation of the IMM in regional networks identifying the interventions needed to create of improve the regional innovation systems.
4. To pilot the IMM in the 4 regions of Tuscany, Wales, Syddanmark and Basque Country (who are all members of EARLALL) focusing on an innovative sector with emerging technologies.
5. To create the regional networks in each partner country.
6. To facilitate the creation of the International Innovation Network.

Methodologically the project will develop in 5 key phases:

1. Studying the situation of regional innovation systems.
2. Designing an Innovation Management Model.
3. Drawing up action plans for the Regional Innovation Systems.
4. Piloting the Innovation Management Model.
5. Creating of the Regional Innovation Networks.

Phase 1: Researching the different innovation systems that exist in each region represented in the project.
Each regional study will identify strengths and weaknesses in each innovation system. A situation report will then guide decisions by regional governments and agents. The study will give insights into other worlds and best practices developed in other regions and carry out an inter-regional analysis on the most significant shortfalls in the regional innovation system, facilitating and focussing common work on common problems.

Phase 2: designing an Innovation Management Model (IMM) that will enable adaptations and ensure that the challenge of innovation is tackled in a more coordinated, intelligent way. It will aim to systematically manage different phases of the innovation process and to allow different agents and regions to generate an organisational/regional context that encourages innovation. Thus the innovation management model to be developed by the project partners will address not only the systematic part of innovation (macro-process of innovation) but also the context/environment part that brings about the innovation (culture for innovation).

Phase 3. Drawing up action plans for the regional innovation systems.
Taking into account both the results obtained in the first phase "Situation study of regional innovation systems" and those from the second phase "Design of an innovation management model", proposals will be drawn up for intervention plans aiming to complete and/or improve the different regional innovation systems. These plans will consist of completely or partially applying the innovation model to the regional innovation system.

Phase 4. Piloting the Innovation Management Model in the 4 regions of Tuscany, Basque, Wales and Syddanmark in a sector in innovative technologies (see WP10 for full details).

Phase 5. Creating the "Regional Innovation Systems Network".
The targets would be:

• Supporting and monitoring the progress and development of each
  of the regions in applying the innovation management model designed in phase 2.
• Monitoring execution of intervention plans designed in phase 3.
• Guaranteeing the systematic improvement of the designed innovation management model.
• Favouring cooperation between different regions.
• Facilitating future studies regarding the regional innovation systems.
• Being a source of guidance and inspiration for all agents participating in the regional innovation systems.