Towards Developing a Research Roadmap for Service Innovation in Ireland
2012
The systematic development, design and testing of new and/or improved service offerings, processes and business models, i.e. service innovation, represents a timely and relevant growth area transcending European and Irish innovation and socio-economic recovery strategies. However, research into the development and practice of service innovation vis-avis product innovation, is a relatively emerging domain and is at best characterised as emerging and fragmented. The existing body of research knowledge is derived largely from product innovation and fails to provide concrete processes by which to embed service
innovation at the firm-level. Hindered by a lack of integrative theoretical and supportive framework models, success rates for service innovation are low and there is a lack of tailored instruments and tools for planning, designing and developing service innovations which has
significant implications in terms of industry awareness, deployment and impact. Additionally, it has been well documented that innovation policy and supports have not been well attuned to service innovation, particularly as current framework mechanisms are predominantly
biased towards technological and product innovation.
Reflective of this, The European Expert Panel on Service Innovation has recently identified that the key underlying challenge facing Europe is the development of a coherent policy framework that enables and supports the transformative and horizontal cross-cutting economic potential of service innovation. Therefore, to underpin Ireland’s emerging service innovation agenda, informed research is required to address the underlying challenges that exist at policy, research and industry levels. Through a combination of desk research and semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders within Ireland’s innovation ecosystem, a range of challenges and action points relating to Ireland’s engagement and potential to exploit service innovation at policy, practice, research and education levels are surfaced. Moreover, the study subsequently proffers a responsive research roadmap, informed by EU best practice,as a starting point to stimulate further research developments within the field. Accordingly, the research impacts and has implications at various stakeholder levels, most notably in terms
of informing policy development through evidence based research, prioritising applied and academic research gaps and challenges and also signals the need to prioritise industry awareness and practice of the discipline.
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