Agenda Reflections and Theoretical Basis

The Innovation Agendas are a space for learning new ways of making society and organizational modes in line with the new scenarios, insofar as they converge a participatory conception of the State and its policy on a par with a more participatory community, moving jointly towards the construction of a Knowledge Society.

On the other hand, this methodology for building alliances and sustainable commitments is based on operating styles associated with teamwork, confidence building, communication and cooperation. The very logic that animates this process involves interactive work styles that make it possible for the participants to mutually legitimise each other, in a climate of respect and dialogue. Therefore, the Innovation Agendas constitute a democratic way of planning and developing social capital, competitiveness and governance.

Given the change in logic and procedures required by this methodology, the efforts of consultation and promotion must be both inter- and intra-institutional. This condition is particularly important to be taken into account by the organisation requesting the technical cooperation, i.e. the organisation coordinating or facilitating the process.

The generation and effective use of knowledge within organizations is an increasingly important factor in efficiency and competitiveness. However, the mere existence of knowledge does not guarantee innovation, which is considered to be an interactive process. Innovation, at a more general level, is a process that evolves according to the quality of the interactions and links between the suppliers and demanders of goods and services, as well as the knowledge and technologies that allow the benefits of the participants to be maximised.

Therefore, it is necessary to recognize the knowledge dispersed among and within organizations, synthesize it and incorporate it into key activities to promote a continuous process of innovation. In this context, there is a need to combine explicit knowledge (formal), tacit knowledge (know-how) and competitive intelligence to increase the speed of change in knowledge structures and the amount of effective responses given in time and quality to the demands of the environment.

In order for there to be an appropriation of knowledge by society and to improve the innovative efficiency of a country, it is necessary to determine how intense and extensive the relations between the sectors are, all of which are elements of a collective system for the creation and use of knowledge. In addition, this appropriation depends on the existence of a culture of innovation among its population, particularly at the levels of discussion and the way in which the available resources are managed and organised, both at the state level and in companies and organisations. The formation of innovation systems can enable a social group with limited resources to make rapid progress through an appropriate combination of domestic and imported technology with local generation, adaptation and improvement.

The application of innovation is a necessity for all strata of society and should be aimed at improving the social and economic conditions of the population. In society there are different actors, in addition to the state and companies, which are the driving forces behind the creation and absorption of knowledge by society as a whole and which incorporate innovation in their management, processes and products. Essentially, the idea of the innovation system considers that the capacity that society as a whole must develop in order to appropriate knowledge is more than a simple sum of the activities of the different sectors, it corresponds to the result of the synergy that comes from the interactions of the different actors.

This is why the management of knowledge and technologies in all their forms is seen as indispensable, in order to promote competitiveness through the use of innovation, the strengthening of the industrial and social fabric and the consensus of socially responsible entrepreneurs. In this way, the benefits of the participants are maximised, including public and private institutions of a business, social or political nature.

In this sense, the aim is to establish a mechanism that effectively connects the execution of the projects, their evaluation and their application context, the latter represented by the user-beneficiaries of the Agenda.

The products of this methodology for the creation of alliances and sustainable commitments are born from the crossing of two fundamental variables. On the one hand, they depend on the modality(ies) in which the project is included, so there will be products in terms of:

• Increasing, deepening or adapting knowledge on a specific thematic area (Research Mode);
• Increase in human research, professional and technical capacities (Training Mode);
• Strengthening of technological and managerial capacities of companies and business networks (Modernisation mode);
• Access to information and communication technologies and information systems associated with productive or social developments (Computerisation Mode);
• Dissemination of knowledge and technologies and generation of a culture of innovation (Promotion mode);
• Creation and strengthening of networks and alliances linked to knowledge and technologies (Networking Modality)

In addition, there are other types of products and results such as those described below:

• • The appropriation of the methodology as a new logic of knowledge exchange, between the different actors, through the various modalities and ways of implementing their processes.

  • The definition of the lines of attention to be attacked must be done with great precision, writing them in a way that makes clear the objective being pursued, reducing as much as possible the possibilities of interested or biased interpretation