Place-Based Innovation Ecosystems: Espoo Innovation Garden and Aalto University (Finland)

The present case study pursues to identify key success factors in Espoo innovation ecosystem, with a particular attention to the role of Aalto University, with a view to inform policies aimed at supporting the strengthening and emergence of existing and new place-based innovation ecosystems in other EU regions and cities, as well as of entrepreneurial universities. It starts by defining what a place-based innovation ecosystem is intended to be, and identifies a conceptual framework that can operationalise the study of concrete cases. The study continues with a presentation of the main local actors and pre-existing enabling factors, progressively moves to the catalysers that have made this innovation garden flourish (notably the reforms that enabled the emergence of Aalto University with its particular governance model) and finally analyses its Quadruple Helix collaboration model and the way the whole ecosystem is orchestrated.