Final Report – Development and Application of Innovation Commons for Strengthening Innovation Eco-Systems

This final report summarises the project Development and Application of Innovation Commons for Strengthening Innovation Eco-Systems, carried out by Compare/DigitalWell Arena, Karlstad Municipality, and Ideon Science Park with funding from Vinnova. The project explored how innovation commons – shared structures for pooling, governing, and further developing distributed knowledge – can strengthen innovation ecosystems in practice. The report describes how the project moved from theory to application through three main tracks: establishing a Learning Community for Innovation Commons, developing frameworks for governance and evaluation, and testing digital infrastructure to support innovation commons systems. The work shows that long-term value does not emerge from individual methods, tools, or platforms alone, but through clear rules, active stewardship, shared learning, and structures that make knowledge possible to use and further develop over time. The report also highlights important insights into what is needed for innovation commons to become sustainable. These include funding and evaluation models that better support discovery-driven work, clearer governance from the start, and increased competence in managing information assets and shared development resources. It is relevant for actors working with innovation ecosystems, science parks, public-sector collaboration, policy development, funding, evaluation, and knowledge sharing.