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Research

Based on the analysis of the current situation, we permanently observe, from different scenarios of the future, the global challenges, the megatrends that will impact them and the visions and mobilizing guidelines for the achievement of a desired future. Winning the Future involves a series of concrete works at the service of companies, cities, regions and governments that propose strategies to advance towards new stages and spaces of prosperity.

Thus, our main lines of “active and collaborative research” are the basis of learning and reference for the different strategic processes in the service of various clients and specific demands. They are, in turn, the source of Enovatinglab‘s work for its documents, reports, initiatives with third parties, seminars, in-company courses and possible publications.

A good example of this project, always inexhaustible and ongoing, as a reference for our work is the recent publication of “Bizkaia 2050: Bilbao – Bizkaia – Basque Country”. In collaboration with the Bilbao Chamber of Commerce on the occasion of its double anniversary (135th anniversary of its foundation and 540th anniversary of the Bilbao Consulate), it includes a strategic commitment to a desired society in 2050, in the light of the determinants of competitiveness, the reality and strengths of the Basque economic-social fabric, the observable global megatrends and the space of opportunity waves on which to influence the radical and disruptive revolutions and transformations that the country as a whole and its main actors will have to face between now and 2050. Although its focus is the Basque Country in its last 45 years, since its access to self-government after the autarchy of the dictatorship suffered, it is a valid reference for any region or country facing its strategy for an expected future. In one way or another, it incorporates a wide range of concepts and areas of research and specialization that Enovatinglab has been developing in this open knowledge space, shared with third parties and made available to society:

Strategic foresight: Winning the Future.

Always committed to the long view in the distant term to anticipate future paths that different signals sense or advance, guiding the decisions that the immediacy and the medium term have to take organizations in coherence with their unique value propositions.

In Enovatinglab, from our particular journey in/towards competitiveness and prosperity, “co-creating company-society value”, we have been working, over time, in a series of projects and instruments that have contributed to understand, engage and co-create solutions, anticipating events, from our prospective observation and design and implementation of strategies. Today, clustering, the generation of ecosystems and the empowerment of new innovative territories are particularly relevant.

In this long journey we have focused the collaborative research around what we understand to be the key pieces of any strategy:

Coopetitive Alliances for the New Economy: Innovative Companies, Governments, Regions” … reconciling the inevitability of coopetitive

responses (competing and cooperating at the same time), between different public and private agents weaving commitments and alliances in the face of a so-called New Economy always to come, attending to changing social demands, innovation and technology.

2. “Global Economic Crisis” and “Responses to the Great Global Recession” that led to one of the worst scenarios of a globalized financial crisis for which we are still paying and suffering its origin, consequences and the decisions taken to solve it.

Although it had its origin-destination in the analysis and responses to the 2008 crisis, today, as yesterday, it requires a permanent reconsideration in relation to the different crises that we live and will live in the future. Somehow, we will always be in crisis, conditioned by uncertainty, in search of opportunities.

3. “Clustering and Glokalizing the economy”, emphasizing the necessary clustering of economic activity, overcoming the old traditional sectors and the erroneous mythification of a “globalization” without limits and without the necessary gloKalized adaptation to the real situations and demands of the different nations, regions and communities around the world.

Today, fortunately, in a world that questions the “immutable truths of the past”, our conceptual positioning for decades is more important than ever and allows (and requires) us to emphasize a multiple interrelation of lines of research around:

  • Globalization, regionalization and glokalization.
  • The challenge of inequality and the responses that must be given from the perspective of inclusion.
  • ESG, participative capitalism and different business models to meet economic, social and environmental demands at the same time.
  • The pace and intensity of the different necessary transitions (demographic, digital, energy, ecological-climatic, technological).
  • The future of the world of work.
  • The sustainable well-being system.

We approach these projects from a “base model of competitiveness, well-being, value co-creation and inclusive development”.

4. The monitoring of the “Shared Value – Company-Society Shared Value” movement, which questions the role of companies and governments, in addition to the current socio-economic systems, focusing on social demands and needs, the business model of the companies of the future and the new roles assignable to their different players, with special emphasis on the role of the company and governments, as well as countless “intermediate entities”, facilitators of expected results.

Learning along this long road and the number of new issues to be resolved led us to seek the integration of demands, milestones and lines of work already undertaken in order to take a step forward, based on their strategic convergence. The initial project has the following conceptual outline and follows Enovatinglab‘s usual methodology in these processes areas:

to advance in research work and initiatives, publication and permanent debate, generating, at the same time, the content of a final product and its publication.

Thus, a long list of projects have been mutually enriched throughout our work. We highlight among others:

  • White Paper on Inclusive Growth and Competitiveness in Europe. It is the result of the collaborative project of the European Inclusive Growth and Competitiveness Lab platform (Enovatinglab, European Inclusive Growth and Competitiveness Lab of the World Economic Forum, European Investment Bank and Bruegel).

  • “Competitive Cities and their connection to Global Value Chains”. The paper is part of the series of three reports produced by the World Economic Forum’s Global Advisory Council on Competitiveness in its latest 2014-2016 period focusing on the essential role that City-Regions play in Competitiveness. (Enovatinglab – World Economic Forum’s Global Advisory Council on Competitiveness).

  • “The Competitiveness of City-Regions and its effects as an Engine for the Competitiveness of their Companies”. The interaction of numerous studies and projects carried out by the different forums, companies and organizations with which we work is channeled towards the case of Bilbao and the Basque Country to “test” the determining factors of the competitiveness of a city region. (WEF-GAC Collaboration Project on Competitiveness)

  • “Social Progress Index”. Participation in the elaboration of the Social Progress Index at sub-national and/or infra-state level, identifying the distinctive variables for its measurement and composition (Enovatinglab, Social Progress Imperative, ORKESTRA).

  • “Unlocking Competitiveness” opening up its concepts and essential elements towards true inclusive development, is the challenge we set ourselves for 2015 and which gave rise to the new collaborative and applied research project undertaken from Enovating Lab. Faithful to our commitment to the interaction of Academia, Business, Territory and, above all, the ability to impact on Society, we launched this new initiative (Enovatinglab).

  • “Development strategies in complex regiones” Collaborative basis with the initial LAC (Lehendakari Agirre Center) project.

  • “The unforeseen perversity of expected achievements”. From the factors of success to the causes of the crisis (2008. Enovatinglab)

  • “Clusterizing the Economy”. Application to different industries and approach based on the development of companies that are drivers of internationalization (Enovatinglab + Business strategies for internationalization) (Always in open development, adapting it to the temporary context).

  • “Innovation in business strategy”. (R&D project in collaboration with B+I Strategy) The basis of a never-ending work in progress, with the participation of multiple actors.

  • Jakin Bask: “Smart Territories”. Spaces for the creative economy in the knowledge society (Tecnalia, University of the Basque Country, Fundación Metrópoli, Enovatinglab).

  • “Joint Value Creation”. With the premise of redefining business models in companies oriented towards the creation of shared value, the concept of competitiveness takes its next natural step with the convergence of B+G+C alliances, the incorporation of shared value in the direction of a new vector, “Converting the needs and demands of society into new corporate business models”. We are conducting applied research in three case studies in the health, energy and finance sectors (Enovatinglab). Today, more than ever, this is a very topical issue, in the midst of the necessary reconstruction of global geoeconomics and geopolitics.

  • “A cluster-based competitiveness strategy for inclusive development”. Building a unique strategy. In a society that increasingly demands new transformative models, while mitigating inequality around the world, different lines of thought and movements committed to providing new solutions are converging in the quest for inclusive growth and development. Companies, governments, academia and communities of people themselves are incorporating, to a greater or lesser extent, new strategies aligned with these objectives.

Today, faced with the effervescence of the world of ECOSYSTEMS, coopetitive platforms, clear rupture of traditional sectors and a systemic complexity that demands stable, institutionalized, poly-disciplinary and geo-differential partnerships and alliances, the clustering of the economy stands out for its unparalleled contribution.

Our ONGOING RESEARCH PROJECTS

We are advancing/deepening our work around three core transformation projects:

  • Towards a reconfiguration of the Competitiveness and Well-being Framework for Inclusive Development.
  • New health systems and models? Health as a vector of social and economic development. Health as a vector of social and economic development. 
  • Co-create regionalized platforms for innovation, entrepreneurship and inclusive development. Critical art in the weaving of potential alliances and partnerships.