The Camp for Societal Innovation is an instrument for addressing societal challenges in a powerful and effective way. Innovation Camps are a condensed process in which economic, social, technological, cultural and environmental challenges can be addressed at policy, strategy and/or operational levels, and how they can be tackled and ‘solved’ innovatively by key Quadruple Helix stakeholders and experts working together. Since 2010, more than 20 innovation camps have been run using this concept, applying it to support innovation and societal renewal in diverse regions across Europe.
The Camp concept was developed by the New Club of Paris (NCP) and Finland’s Aalto University in 2009. Leif Edvinsson, Markku Markkula, Pirjo Ståhle and Hank Kune co-created the concept and were instrumental in its further development. Valuable comments to improve the methodology have come from Camp conveners, facilitators, challenge owners, participants. In particular, important conceptual and methodological insights have been contributed by members of I2SI (International Initiatives for Societal Innovation), the New Club of Paris, and the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission.
There is now a Methodology Handbook that describes key success factors for organizing and running Innovation Camps. This Handbook, bringing together the learnings from eight years of work and 22 camps, is conceived to encourage regions and cities from all over Europe to adopt the Innovation Camps methodology as a tool to collectively and effectively address societal and economic challenges concerning local societies in a larger [European] context through an open, collaborative and inclusive Entrepreneurial Discovery Process (EDP) involving Quadruple Helix actors (i.e. government, industry, academia, and civil society).
The Innovation Camp Methodology Handbook – written by Gabriel Rissola, Hank Kune and Paolo Martinez – is available for downloading on the JRC/Smart Specialisation Platform website:
It is also available through the EU Science Hub:
A hard-copy version is also available.