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Across Europe a growing movement of people is developing inspiring digital solutions to social challenges. These range from social networks for those living with chronic health conditions, to online platforms for citizen participation in policymaking, to using open data to create more transparency about public spending. We call this phenomenon digital social innovation (DSI). DSI offers the possibility to deliver social impact more efficiently and to empower people to take more control over the issues they face. But DSI has so much potential it is yet to fulfil, but once it enters mainstream consciousness, the public service and third sector it [...]

The EU defines the Silver Economy as “the sum of all economic activity that serve the needs of people aged 50 and over, including the products and services they purchase directly and the further economic activity this spending generates.” It stretches across all sectors (public and private) of the economy, including health and nutrition, leisure and well-being, finance and transport, housing, education and employment. Spoiler alert: the silver economy is huge…and growing. A European Commission study conducted by Technopolis and Oxford Economics estimated a baseline value of €3.7 trillion for Europe’s Silver Economy in 2015, measured primarily as private expenditure by [...]

Top 3 Trends in Digital Innovation Pretty much every company today is developing their digital competency, knowing that success is based on their ability to design new technologies that deliver personalized experiences and innovative services to employees, customers, and ecosystem partners. But how are organizations setting themselves apart when ‘going digital’ is no longer enough? And what are the main trends shaping digital innovation that companies need to address to survive in the post-digital era? What is Digital Innovation? At its core, digital innovation is the application of new technologies to existing business problems and practices in a process that takes [...]

Being a socially responsible business often involves higher material and labour costs. But there is a business case to be made for being a good corporate citizen. In a competitive labour market, employees are drawn to companies that have a good track record for responsible behaviour, such as environmental protection. By being a good role model, a company will attract people who have skills such as innovativeness, leadership and the ability to work in teams. And by treating employees responsibly, costly employee turnover is minimized. It is also good for a business to stand out from the crowd—for the right reasons [...]

Åbo Akademi University (ÅAU) in Turku and Vaasa, Finland is an internationally acknowledged research university with an extensive responsibility for preserving the Swedish educational and cultural heritage as the only Swedish-speaking multi-disciplinary university in Finland. Due to the Swedish language and the university’s location on the South-West and West coast, ÅAU also serves as a bridge for collaboration in research and education between Finland and other Nordic states. ÅAU employs 1,200 staff and provides high quality education to 5,500 undergraduate and 780 postgraduate students, of whom 500 postgraduate students (64%) are awarded Masters Degrees and around 70 students (9%) graduate with [...]

New Phone App Seeks to Help Businesses Navigate their Way through Crises As the tourism industry in many countries is starting to move into what is hoped is a post-pandemic recovery phase there will undoubtedly be structural and managerial readjustments for many businesses as they try to ensure that they are more resilient and able to adapt to future crises. West Highland College UHI’s Centre for Recreation and Tourism Research (CRTR) has recently been awarded funding aimed at addressing this issue. The centre will work with both academic and business partners in Spain, Ireland, Germany, Denmark and Iceland in a three-year [...]

Meet the SHINE team! Project Leader Dungannon Enterprise Centre Dungannon Enterprise Centre (DEC) is an awarding winning development body and currently employs 10 members of staff. It provides support in many ways depending upon the needs of the entrepreneur and community, such as Industrial and office workspace units to incubate local businesses and third sector organisations, professional business advice and counselling, Training on business start-up, expansion planning, consultancy support in sourcing government support and finance, marketing planning and E-Learning solutions. Dungannon Enterprise Centre’s (DEC) primary aim is to help energise their community through capacity and competency programmes, provision of social innovation [...]

MEET THE TEAM Want to find out a little more about the INACT Erasmus+ project and meet the partners who are making all of this possible then just keep reading… At the time when innovation is so clearly needed, education is failing to respond. The OECD shows that, in contrast to many companies and countries which have innovation policies and departments, “innovation remains a marginal policy agenda in most education systems.” Our own review of research/policy on education innovation revealed that the growth of technological innovation has masked the lack of pedagogic innovation and has made it harder to put forward [...]