Unit 3: Designing an open innovation project to meet a real-world challenge

ABBREVIATIONS

CHOs: Cultural Heritage Organisations

HEIs: Higher Education Institutions

OI: Open Innovation

Learning outcomes

By the end of this unit, you will be able to,

Identify challenges and opportunities for open innovation projects in Cultural Heritage Organisations
Reflect on specific cases of OI in the cultural sector
Evaluate project ideas
Implement project ideas
Design relevant projects in collaboration with local communities,

Structure:

Introduction to relevant terminology
Thematic sections
Questions for reflection
Study Cases catalogue
Activities and takeaways
Self assessment quizzes

You will read, write/speak and reflect!

Be creative

3.1 Introduction: Introducing the terminology, drawing on knowledge from research in order to understand Open Innovation (OI) and how it is applied in the cultural sector through concrete case studies and project collaborations, focusing on digital transformation processes and social innovation for culture. In the previous units you learned something about digital literacy, reliable sources and reflection. Continue to use these skills in this unit.

Brief description of content

Introducing the terminology
Presenting the challenges that digitalisation poses to HEIs and CHOs: analysis and reflection
Analyse certain case studies

Module Outcome: Identify a challenge and the OI solution.

You will create a short video or a poster, where you pitch your OI project idea, summarising your idea as a solution to your chosen challenge through an OI solution for a particular category of stakeholder (text, visual, other).

Tools: Miro board, Canvas, etc.
Glossary of Terms | Europeana Pro

3.1 : The challenges of Digital transformation for the GLAM sector.

Presentation: Slides by Alexandra Angeletaki NTNU UB

A picture containing person, indoor, wall, woman

Description generated with very high confidence

Read through: Culture institutions history and challenges_AA2022

History and challenges for Cultural Institutions: Museums have played a significant role as private or public Institutions for many decades, but have also seen a change of their role in the perception of their public through time.

The 1970s saw a debate begin with a book published in Sweden called “70 Tallet Museum” (the 1970s Museum) which challenged the traditional view of museums as Memory Institutions. Instead of being these distant entities of collections they become Institutions of interaction with their public.

“In Norway in the 1970s many national regional or local institutions established a shared vision of democratic ownership of heritage and the development of democracy through participation in heritage activities” (Hetland, p. 34).

A shift has occurred in the appreciation and popularity of Museums but with a core value being consistent and that is the one of “learning” (Falck 2000). As Falk points out, as early as in 2000, learning has become very important for their success and survival.

In 2010 Nina Simon’s book ‘Participatory Museum’ introduced the possibility that the museum-going public could engage in curatorial and co-creative processes to promote a different type of visit. So how do we design participation asks, Simon in the following video in order to create enhance engangement.

Task 1: Watch the video and reflect on the following questions.

Watch: The Participatory Museum by Nina Simon

Questions to reflect on:

How was the curatorial authority challenged by the concept of participatory Museum?

How was the engagement of the public influenced by the introduction of smart media?

(answers delivered here)

3.2 Digital transformation for innovation

With the introduction of WWW archives, museums and libraries saw also the possibility of opening up their collections for the wider public through digital platforms and digital tools. The inclusion of new voices was even further boosted by social media participation via smart phones, tablets and personal devices in museum settings (Hetland, 2020, p. 35). At the same time new actors were introduced, “software developers, private companies and global media conglomerates complicating the established relations between public government, museum institutions and the general public(Hylland. 2017, p 80) .

Europeana, is an international organisation, promoting knowledge through digitised collections, in close collaboration with European GLAM institutes and defines digital transformation as such: “Digital transformation is both the process and the result of using digital technology to transform how an organisation operates and delivers value. It helps an organisation to thrive, fulfil its mission and meet the needs of its stakeholders. It enables cultural heritage institutions to contribute to the transformation of a sector powered by digital and a Europe powered by culture”.

Is then the use of digital media and its effects on cultural Institutions just a positive component for such organisation. Or does it semm to be an “inseparable factor” for the successful engagement of their public (Mahony 2017). Meehan argues that “It is easy to take the internet at face value and to consider it merely the portal through which we retrieve information” (2022, p. 424).

The issue is much more complex. The internet is not a neutral container, it is an “intricate structure existing in a thoroughly specific context (political, cultural, economic and social) that has determined, from software to algorithms, the form it assumes today” (Mihelj, Leguina, & Downey, 2019, p. 7). There have been various unseen rules that govern its navigation, meaning that if the potential museum visitors are not familiar with these systems, or just lack the technological infrastructure, there is little chance for them to be able to navigate and have access to all information provided. They need to have certain skills and infrastructure to be able to get the maximum benefit of its accessibility. The internet is constructed to work for a core ‘norm’ and those who constructed it and continue to work with it, can easily marginalise a perceived ‘other’ and deepen the digital divide that exists in our times. “In many ways the internet has failed to reach its democratising potential and has simply replicated the power structures that many hoped it would overthrow “(Noble & Tynes, 2016, p. 2).

So even though the digital tools and platforms have given a rise to accessibility for CHOs and have allowed a wider participation of the public that does not really mean that it provides equal opportunities for all. As Meehan (2020)

Argues that through various intersectional studies of the internet has shown that “ for every five people, three fewer in the world’s ‘least developed’ countries have access to the internet in comparison to those countries perceived to be ‘most developed. Thus “ the disparity, in real terms, is huge” and cannot be overlooked as the digitalisation of archive and museum collections grows, as that does not necessarily mean that the interaction with the public is always meaningful enough..

Let us look at how Unesco (2003) defines digital heritage, through article 1:

“The digital heritage consists of unique resources of human knowledge and expression. It embraces cultural, educational, scientific and administrative resources, as well as technical, legal, medical and other kinds of information created digitally, or converted into digital form from existing analogue resources. Where resources are “born digital”, there is no other format but the digital object. Digital materials include texts, databases, still and moving images, audio, graphics, software and web pages, among a wide and growing range of formats. They are frequently ephemeral, and require purposeful production, maintenance and management to be retained. Many of these resources have lasting value and significance, and therefore constitute a heritage that should be protected and preserved for current and future generations”.

Task 2: Choose one of the two following tasks (to be delivered)

A: What have you learned, try to reflect on the questions below on your own. Check your answers by referring back to the readings.

Has the internet helped representation and democratisation in the cultural sector?

What are the differences in infrastructure, means, resources that can create less possibilities for some?

How was that changed by the pandemic?

Product to be delivered: Create a small rarity cabinet in Miro with images and texts representing the challenges digitalization poses for today’s CHOs based on your answers. Use what you have read to inform your choices and use reflective writing to produce some explanatory tags on the issue.

A rarity cabinet is a collection of rare objects:

Picture 1: Museum Wormianum was a cabinet of rarities and Denmark’s first museum. It was created by Ole Worm, who was a doctor, ancient researcher and polyhistor, and lived 1588-1654. The collection consisted of objects from the mineral, plant and animal kingdoms, but there were also antiquities, art objects and ethnography.

B: Reflection exercise: Choose one video and reflect on the following:

Do the following resources have any new information for you, any new knowledge that you find interesting. These are your main takeaways, so write at least two new ideas or concepts that have been intriguing to you and why ? (deliver in the column of 1. takeaways).

In order to evaluate the content of these videos, think about who is producing this video for whom and what is the goal they want to achieve. Is this an independent distribution, is this knowledge based on reliable sources? Practise here what you learned above in Unit 1.1 about evaluating sources. Deliver in the second column.

Resource	Main takeaways	Is this a reliable source?
VIDEO: Refugees as guides
VIDEO: Building a Museum at the web

COVID 19 and the cultural sector: The last two years, the COVID-19 crisis, challenged the cultural sector once again and also accelerated in many ways the digital transformation in society in general as well. Most Museums in Europe and especially in southern parts of Europe, where a great part of their economic incomes come from tourism were faced with new challenges.

A survey conducted by NEMO ( European Museums Organisation) in 2020 and 2021, was published and showed how unprepared the sector was for such a crisis. Museums do not seem to have a robust risk strategy in order to leverage unforeseen change brought by a crisis or war or a possible climate crisis.

Nemo´s report also collected data on the government support Museums received and on the actions they organised to increase their digital services in order to meet this new challenge.

Out of the 600 Museums from 48 different countries it appears that: “Of the responding museums, 93% have increased or started online services during the pandemic’, they state in their January 2021 survey. However, almost 40% of the museums responded that they either did not track or did not know about the development of their online visitor numbers, which points to a lack of digital measurement frameworks and methods..

A great difference between large Museums and local or small regional ones was reported as the “majority of larger museums (81%) increased their digital capacities as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, while only 47% of smaller museums indicated that they did ”. (NEMO report, 2021, p4).

Thus local and regional CHOs in most countries have major issues to solve, such as the lack of funding. The task of either digitalising their collections or using social media and other digital platforms to create public engagement is also a challenge to tackle. Economic and societal demographic changes of the local communities adds to these difficulties and cases of communities where such changes occur seem also to be of interest. The notion of regional Museums in Norway becoming “Dialogue institutions” (Muller 2020) proposes reconnecting with its “dynamic surrounding communities” in order to relate to societal changes caused by newcomers to a region and the way they relate to the local history. In Greece similar cases have been examined (Bournia, 2017) where small local cultural organisations and institutions are created and supported entirely by a local cultural society; and seem to contribute to social cohesion and expression of a distinct local identity, involving neglected groups as refugees, that arrive in because of war and climate crisis or as economic refugees looking for a better life. In Greece most of the regional or small local Museums are seen as part of the tourist industry and have been severely hit by the pandemic, the ongoing war and economic crisis. And as Bournia points out most of the local institutions started by relying on local communities. Thes can support local development and could lead to a solution in times of crisis as well.

“ in a more sustainable way and long-term perspective. I argue that instead of local museums, we should strive towards grassroots, local community, participative museums”. (Bornia 2017, p.38)

The eCHOing project has also gathered data from 134 respondents coming from HEIs and CHOs in 2022 in order to examine whether open innovation campaigns addressed to local communities could be beneficiary for regional medium and small museums in case of a new crisis. Proposing the engagement of local communities as it is already practised in several rural regions of the 5 countries emphasises the possibilities of recovery for such small institutions.

“CHOs can expand their knowledge through OI collaborations, enabling them to increase their competitiveness, bring them up to date with academic practices in their respective fields, and contribute to the creation of a much more resilient environment in which they can flourish. Sharing academic expertise and making small CHOs part of the conversation instead of treating them as if they are at the bottom of the cultural pyramid, will enrich their experience, rejuvenate the momentum, and revivify their relationship with academia and the public”.

(Mavroudi 2022).

Suggestions for further reading

The digital transformation agenda and GLAMs – Culture24 findings and outcomes | Europeana Pro
CeOS_SE Project — Citizen-Enhanced Open Science in Southeastern Europe Higher Education Knowledge Hubs
Bounia, Alexandra. (2017). Cultural Societies and Local Community Museums: A case study of a participative museum in Greece. Zarządzanie w Kulturze. 1/2017. 10.4467/20843976ZK.17.003.6286.
Hylland, O. M. (2017). Even Better than the Real Thing? Digital Copies and Digital Museums in a Digital Cultural Policy. Culture Unbound, 9(1), 62–84. https://doi.org/10.3384/cu.2000.1525.179162
Meehan, N. (2022). Digital Museum Objects and Memory: Postdigital Materiality, Aura and Value. Curator: The Museum Journal, 65(2), 417–434. https://doi.org/10.1111/cura.12361

3.3 Introducing Echoing.eu and Open Innovation as a tool for HEIs in co-creating projects with CHOs

About the project : The eCHOing-project is co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union and coordinated by Alexandra Angeletaki, NTNU University Library.

Project web page:eCHOing

Twitter:@eCHOing_EU

Open-Innovation is the promise and the drive-force behind echoing partnerships and work so far. Through the course of this first year of work Echoing has accomplished a collaborative space between HEIs(students and staff) and CHOS (mainly staff) and has put a focus on Open Innovation is a tool to establish a mutual understanding on the possibilities of project collaborations between a network of several HEIs staff and students and 29 APs.

By adopting these forms, the eCHOIng project has established a technology-enhanced participation field calling on its APs to increase their capacity, resilience and extroversion towards University students and staff.

The target groups of the eCHOIng project are the following:

Both HEIs’ staff and students have been a crucial target audience for PR1 surveys and interviews and review rounds and has helped us form the online modules that are presented as online resources. In terms of developing and transferring the insights gained from the project the same holds for the invited members of small and medium-sized CHOs, including governing boards, working staff and volunteers (local and national museums, craft networks, cultural clubs or associations that have joined in these past months through their participation in surveys, webinars meetings and reviews

Watch (optional) the following webinar on Revival of European cultural organisation through higher-education-driven open innovation, in order to understand the aims and methods of the echoing project :

Unlock your potential with Open Innovation in co-creating:

Up to now this module has introduced different aspects of challenges the cultural sector has faced through time and the terminology needed to understand these changes. As pointed out, the digital transformation and the digital divide has also been accelerated by COVID19. eCHOing has also 29 Associated partners that are selected to work with the purpose to create action plans in collaboration with higher education institutions in order to support cultural heritage organisations (CHOs) in their revival through open innovation in the post-pandemic era. Discovering innovation through co-creation of projects is crucial for planning successful innovations.

So it is now time for you to put some ideas into action. eCHOing has created a ‘matching and mapping’ guide to help leverage all the potential resources at your fingertips and allow you to experiment with various strategies to create public engagement. This is an open innovation platform that can be used for inspiration in order to work together and define Open innovation projects with a local institution of your choice. The guide gives you examples of a wide variety of innovation activities, on project co-creation, that is maker space initiatives or courses, hackathons, social media campaigns and more.

Open innovation is about the free flow of ideas and collaboration between different stakeholders and individuals. In the cultural heritage sector, it means activities where institutions from the sector co-create or co-develop with citizens , students and with institutions from other sectors or industry.

It can be implemented in many different ways – and it may involve technology but this is not a must.

Its essential features are collaboration, implementation of new ideas or activities, and engagement.

Open innovation requires an investment of time, effort and most of all planning! Its backbone is engaging with communities, individuals and/or institutions.

Is it worth it? Is this just another distraction from the many tasks of cultural heritage professionals? Previous experience shows it is beneficial to strengthen the engagement between citizens and cultural heritage. It also helps smaller cultural heritage institutions to offer more competitive activities fine-tuned to the interests of their communities and attract new communities to engage with their activities.

This MMG summarizes the key forms of open innovation types (mostly digitally enhanced initiatives ) that are already used within the cultural heritage sector, or have been recently introduced.

We provide an introductory explanation and some inspirational examples but the list is just an indication of different types for Open innovation project collaborations that eCHOing has as a goal.

By eCHOing CC

Open Innovation : The term open innovation means a situation where an organization doesn’t just rely on their own internal knowledge, sources and resources (such as their own staff or R&D for example) for innovation (of products, services, business models, processes etc.) but also uses multiple external sources (such as customer feedback, published patents, competitors, external agencies, the public etc.) to drive innovation. Source:(https://oxford-review.com/oxford-review-encyclopaedia-terms/encyclopaedia-open-innovation-definition-explanation/)

Please note that none of this can be shared or distributed without consent from the eCHOIng consortium.

Task 3: Choose an OI type

Here is an overview of all the different types of Open Innovation the ECHOing team has collected. You should use these for inspiration and to read about best practices in such a type of actions to create user engagement.

Pick a case study: You can now choose one open innovation type to work on!

At the same time Pick a case study: You can now choose one CHO out of the eCHOIng list in the country you work and study.

Instructions

Click the main category

Then choose the type

And click on the link!

Table 1: A visualisation of OIp produced by eCHOing

3.4 Alternative voices for social justice through citizen participation

Can Open Innovation be a way to create more opportunities for equal representation and democratisation of the cultural sector. Could public engagement and dissemination strategies allow several voices to be heard?

Can Open innovation create a dialogue space to converse and codesign alternative narratives and promote the cultural rights of persons belonging to minorities?

One of the mainstream activities for cultural organisations to achieve greater engagement is citizen participation or hands-on activities for the general public.

Mainstream narratives are the dominant form, but some alternative ones exist as well. Let’s find out here the voices that advocate to that:

TOXIC BIOS

“Toxic Bios is a Public Environmental Humanities project based at KTH Environmental Humanities Laboratory in Stockholm. Building on Richard Newman’s definition of Toxic Autobiography, this project is informed by Stacy Alaimo’s work on transcorporeality and by research connecting the body and environmental justice, as, for instance, Gregg Mitman’s Breathing Space. Newman (2012) defines Toxic Autobiographies as a literary genre in the US second-wave environmental writing, meaning a distinct product of marginalised groups denouncing the environmental injustice in which they feel trapped. Toxic autobiographies are a prototype of counter-history, which aim to sabotage mainstream toxic narratives particularly those which reproduce or silence injustice through counter-hegemonic storytelling. The toxic writers seek to uncover everyday life stories from the environmental margins, through the blending of narrative and history, science and politics, personal and collective”.

From Decolonising Archives, “Decolonising Archives is a second publication in the L’Internationale Research strand of Decolonising Practices. Following Decolonising Museums, the current publication focuses on the archive and the ways of recovering its political potential not only in relation to history but, more urgently, to the present. In a similar way to museums and other traditional institutions of the European nation states (though their roots are of course much older), the archives have in the last decades undergone significant changes towards higher accessibility and transparency, facilitated mainly through the advances of digital technologies. These changes have resulted in new challenges which offer unforeseen possibilities for democratisation both in terms of access and knowledge production by new, often marginalised, voices.”:

The Sami population in Scandinavia are declared as Indigenous and have had their own Parliament for many years. Yet , we still do not have south Sami studies at the biggest University of Norway. Researchers have expressed opinions about the decolonising process of memory. Read Hanna Musiol, “based on local postcolonial Indigenous theoretical art practices here—say, Sámi joikers and their transhuman nonlogocentric storytelling, banned because, as my favorite environmental law professor and joiker, Ánde Somby, says, “it made spaces for other ways to think”; or decolonial maps crafted bySissel Bergh or following the footsteps of Elsa Laula, a feminist Sámi rights icon, being guided by Eva Fjellheim and Søstrene Suse’s Radiokino. (Musiol 2022)