Any local or regional economy, or cluster or territorial innovation system, is a complex system. Economic development must be based on a systemic approach. An effort to control or steer it often does not lead to desired results, and usually generates unintended and undesired consequences. For practitioners and stakeholders, analysing a complex system, conceptualising its governance, and facilitating systemic change is a steep task.
Our mission is to equip practitioners and stakeholders with the knowledge and tools they need for this. We empower stakeholders, practitioners and other relevant actors to better understand and manage their economy and strengthen its systemic competitiveness. We try to de-mystify and simplify developmental challenges, tasks and tools as much as possible.
In our work, we combine theory and practice, drawing on state-of-the-art thinking in various disciplines. Through our work with a variety of partners, we embrace multidisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity. With our concepts and methods, we apply the scientific principle without unnecessarily complicating things. We organise and engage in learning processes with practitioners and stakeholders. We don’t teach. We rather build capacity through facilitated and structured learning and coaching.
Our approach is based on the principles of participation, learning and innovation. We draw on a wide range of concepts from economics, social science, change management, complexity science, business management, and other relevant fields.
We understand that in some locations the challenge is to change mindsets and behaviours, while in other locations development is about accelerating and energising ongoing development processes. Invariably, successful development is based on innovation and change.