What is ZOOOM about?
Traditionally, open innovation is understood as referring to company-centric innovation which is characterised by profit-making. It is dominated by intellectual property with licencing models that create ‘restricted openness at relatively high cost’ (Van Overwalle, 2015). Communities in open source software, open hardware and open data have been calling for new approaches to open innovation oriented towards technology. The calls of the open hardware communities stand out as they argue a more technology-oriented approach is needed as the existing community-centred approaches in the field of software do not capture well the production of functional or technical objects. Indeed, while community-centred open innovation has flourished in the domain of software, the effects have been hard to replicate for hardware and data.
In ZOOOM, we argue that open innovation should be prioritised as a matter of public policy in both company-centred and community-centred ecosystems. Open technologies are key to achieving the EU open strategic autonomy and technological sovereignty agenda. By suggesting refocusing of public policy on creating incentives for innovation around open source software, open hardware and open data (the 3Os), ZOOOM aims to enable both the valorisation of the generated community-centred IP and the deployment of innovation in company-centred ecosystems.
To stimulate businesses to adopt more broadly open innovation oriented both towards technology and communities, ZOOOM aims to build tools that support the development of open IP management strategies aligned with prevalent open source-based business models. This is essential to strengthen the following value chain links:
- Research to business (R2B), where knowledge generators create or expand new and existing businesses so as to address the needs of their customers or create new products or services;
- Business to business (B2B), where knowledge generators working in private companies collaborate across companies for a common innovation development on new emerging technologies, start-ups with an innovative character collaborate with established businesses and support the use of new emerging technologies, and service providers for companies require support in creating new business on new emerging technologies; and
- Open innovation which captures all activities based on co-creation, co-innovation, idea generation etc. which involve, with a varying degree, different participants in the innovation ecosystem contributing and generating IP using open technologies.
By reinforcing stakeholders’ competences in legal and business aspects, ZOOOM enhances their autonomy in selecting an open licensing model that matches their business model. To this end, ZOOOM aims to raise awareness on the importance of IP generation and management for valorisation strategies in open collaborative and open innovation ecosystems which rely on open source technologies, incl. open source software, open hardware and open and shared data. ZOOOM seeks to strengthen the capacity of key stakeholders with respect to
- Legal, business and societal aspects related to the creation of knowledge and technology and the inbound and outbound licensing of the generated IP;
- Development of business models enabled by open source licensing models, increasing thereby the capabilities of organisations governing and/or supporting open collaborative and open innovation ecosystems to provide guidance for generation, protection, management and societal use of open source software, hardware and data;
- Collate best practices on how to (optimise) the use (of) IP in 3Os projects (including, where possible, by focusing on four specific subdomains of application, namely quantum technologies and Internet of Trust, blockchain technologies, artificial intelligence, and robotics) in order to support the choice of a licensing model that is close to the business model; and
- Contribute to EU innovation and industrial policy with insights on how open source technologies can support the EU agenda on open strategic autonomy and technological sovereignty.
The first steps in the project implementation relate to analysing relevant cases from literature, ongoing and concluded initiatives and consortium’s experience and support activities, to identify the legal strategy, the business strategy and to correlate them into a coherent framework. Specific use cases are to be identified in four of the emerging technologies prioritized by the EC, in particular: quantum technologies, blockchain technologies, artificial Intelligence, and robotics; considering their high importance for achieving EU strategic autonomy. Despite this specific focus, however, the project results are to remain highly transversal and relevant for all the emerging technologies based on data, software and hardware.
The second round of project activities is to lead to the development of a Toolkit, to enable ZOOOM stakeholders to adopt strategies and evaluate business models related to the three Os.
Learn more about the separate tasks being implemented by going through the work packages’ descriptions. Deliverables are available upon submission.
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| Lead: | imec – KU Leuven – Centre for IT & IP Law (Belgium) |
| Duration: | Month 1 – Month 18 |
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| Lead: | VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd (Finland) |
| Duration: | Month 1 – Month 12 |
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| Objectives: | The objective here is to build the necessary capacity in the open innovation ecosystems for IP generation and management. Starting from the analyses produced in Work Package 1 and Work Package 2, needs and requirements will be further analysed in relation to the specific stakeholders under consideration and a customized toolkit will be designed and distributed to facilitate licencing choice and management and business identification. To support the toolkit adoption, training modules will be designed to directly address the challenges emerged from Work Package 1 and Work Package 2 analyses. The results will feed the Work Package 4 campaigns. The training materials and toolkit will be compatible with the EIT Manufacturing platforms and tools, to be included in education, business creation and innovation programs. |
| Lead: | Aalborg University (Denmark) |
| Duration: | Month 1 – Month 18 |
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| Objectives: | Work Package 4 will carry out the dissemination, exploitation and communication plan and the ZOOOM awareness raising activities to knowledge generators, supporting organizations, and key stakeholders, to support the implementation of the project objectives. |
| Lead: | LIBRe Foundation (Bulgaria) |
| Duration: | Month 1 – Month 24 |
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| Objectives: | The objective of this work package is to ensure the smooth development of the project including communication between the consortium and the European Commission (EC), so that the project progresses in a coordinated and coherent manner and that all management activities, financial, technical and legal aspects and other issues are managed to a high standard and according to the Grant Agreement (GA) terms. Work Package 5 has specific objectives in the establishment and follow-up of consortium agreement, communication within the consortium and with the EC, organisation of project meetings, monitoring and controlling of project advance and time schedules and overview the financial and technical management, review of milestones and deliverables, provide and manage the Data Management Plan and define a long-term sustainability plan for the generated results. |
| Lead: | Fondazione Hub Innovazione Trentino (Italy) |
| Duration: | Month 1 – Month 24 |
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