Meeting the Inclusion Challenge in Innovation

User inclusion in innovation is increasingly the target of policy rhetoric at both organizational and societal levels. And extensive research has demonstrated the potential contribution that users can make, both at the ‘front end’ of innovation with their ideas and insights and downstream, facilitating adoption and diffusion. However, translating this potential into practice remains problematic, not least because we need to understand more about how to hear user voices, amplify their insights, and provide practical channels for inclusion to ensure full co-creation of innovation. Our earlier book from 2019 (‘Responsible Innovation in Digital Health’, Edward Elgar) added to the growing body of knowledge around whether users can be involved, and this book opens up the ‘how?’ theme. Our work suggested a spectrum of user involvement ranging from those who can participate fully to those who are passive players in the innovation process, and we explore in this book different tools, techniques, and mechanisms for enabling such users to become more involved in the innovation process. We look at the concept of ‘boundary innovation spaces’ as environments in which co-creation can be enabled, drawing on experience across a wide international research network. We also explore the broader innovation environment – the specific networks of actors and their interactions which define the innovation ecosystem where user inclusion may be embedded.

This book moves the discussion beyond the question of whether users can be more effectively included throughout the innovation process to explore the ways in which this might be enabled.

Tatiana Iakovleva, University of Stavanger, Norway; Elin M. Oftedal; John Bessant, University of Exeter, UK