Digital Co-Creation in Pandemic Conditions: Evaluation Survey

In this study, we examine how digital innovation processes/activities for regional development have been impacted by COVID-19 through a combination of seven semi-structured interviews with members of the project teams and key stakeholders of the six participating regional authorities, 23 persons in total, and an e-survey to stakeholders in the regions with 59 participants. The aim was to find out the experience of co-creation and open social innovation during the pandemic, but also to look forward and identify potential good practices as well as challenges to be faced when the work continues. Therefore, this report is focusing on lessons learned and recommendations just as much as on the experience.

This study is conducted under the framework of the Interreg Europe project “OSIRIS” (Open Social Innovation policies driven by co-creative Regional Innovation eco-systemS). OSIRIS demonstrated how actors (policy-makers, researchers, businesses, citizens and the civil society) with different experiences and expectations can stimulate co-creation process, making use of Open and Social Innovation (OSI) methods, from open data to open software, to address societal challenges for regional development.

Wiithin the frame of the project, six regional policy instruments, pertaining to the EU regional and structural policy programmes, were assessed and developed, and three pilot projects were implemented, involving five of the seven partners and putting the policy development to practice. Beside this, a number of other projects and initiatives were launched by the partners during and after the project period, based on the OSIRIS development work but not formally within the project.