DigitalWell Demand Accelerator showcased at UNECE Conference

Together with Kjell-Håkan Närfelt, Chief Strategy Advisor at Vinnova, Lina Svensberg, Innovation Manager at DigitalWell Arena and Compare Foundation, today spoke at a conference arranged by The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE).

The policy dialogue targeted possibilities for innovation-enhancing procurement, and how this can help UNECE-members in Eastern Europe and South Caucasus (EESC). 

“Mission driven innovation is about gathering the strength of the whole society. Public sector plays an instrumental part, but this also requires well-functioning processes that allows for public sector to drive innovation with a scalability perspective”, says Lina Svensberg. 

The Sub-regional Innovation Policy Outlook (IPO) 2020, show that EESC countries do not invest more in R&D as there is a lack of market demand for innovative products and services. As public procurement budgets frequently exceed 10 per cent of GDP, EESC governments could use innovation-enhancing procurement, as a tool to drive demand for innovation, while achieving policy goals for sustainable development.

Kjell-Håkan Närfelt and Lina Svensberg shared their ideas on how public procurement can be a driver of innovation.

Kjell-Håkan Närfelt and Lina Svensberg shared some of their theses on how public procurement can drive innovation. Ideas that have recently been developed, finetuned and tested in practice in a project (DigitalWell Demand Accelerator) with the city of Karlstad where several companies have been procured to take part in an innovative process.

“The learnings and findings in this co-creation process are transparent and can be used to the benefit of all parties involved. Another important part of our process is that the services and products developed in Demand Accelerator should have the capacity to scale. It is not about creating a service for a single customer in the public sector, it is about creating a larger market”, says Lina Svensberg.