A Journey from a Need Map to an Orchestrated Ecosystem Model: Case Developing Oamk’s Core Partner Model

Abstract

Regional and smart city development together with technological change and innovations have become a constant and pervasive theme. To secure successful regional development there is a need to combine the strengths of different stakeholders within the region, nationally and internationally. Thus, it seems that ecosystem approaches including co-creation activities might be an efficient way to tackle challenges occurring. Especially ecosystems which are smartly orchestrated including various kinds of stakeholders such as public, university and business actors seem to enable more effective development activities. This encourages organisations to develop new forms of partner activities. During 2023, Oulu University of Applied Sciences (Oamk) in collaboration with Vision Factory conducted an extensive study related Oamk’s core partners and their views about collaboration with Oamk. This article describes the essential findings from the study in the form of a core partner need map which demonstrates the current needs and value points of the studied partners. The need map indicates Oamk’s core partners’ readiness to adopt co-creation related to many different ctivities. Based on the study this article demonstrates a core partner activity map demonstrating the activities co-created among Oamk and its core partners. Moreover, the learnings of this study suggest that HEIs like Oamk should reshape their ecosystem operations together with their partners in more collaborative way and finally, HEIs should investigate their role in increasing the diversity in all stages of innovation process.