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Governments provide policy incentives to increase adoption rates of electric vehicles and achieve sustainability goals. This paper investigates the impact of UK financial purchase incentives on new registrations of electric fleets whilst moderating for change in gross domestic product (GDP). We use a unique dataset of new registrations of electric fleets in the UK for a 20-year period (1999–2019). Our results show that financial purchase incentives positively impact new registrations of electric fleets, and this effect is positively moderated by GDP change. Marginal analysis reveals three categories of adopters that purchase electric fleets at different levels of policy and GDP change: insensitive adopters, standard adopters, and sensitive adopters. Overall, financial incentives may be more effective in fostering the adoption of electric fleets when set to levels that are conditioned on the level of GDP change. In particular, financial purchase incentives are most effective when GDP change and incentives are above their average level.

The study “New technologies and digitisation: opportunities and challenges for the social economy and social enterprises” sets out to explore how the rising importance of the social economy in Europe is facing the challenges of digital transformation. It focuses on whether, why, how, and to what extent the integration of digital platforms and advanced technologies (i.e. Open-Source, Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things, Big Data, Distributed Ledger Technologies) may affect the design and delivery of new/better social and societal impact by the social economy. This study shows that digital platforms and advanced technologies’ capabilities of automating and simplifying operations are opening up opportunities for the social economy in terms of increased reach and enhanced effectiveness. Digitalisation also underpins the creation of new and innovative social services and working conditions helping to tackle existing and emerging social and societal problems. Whilst these trends are set to continue in the near future, European Institutions, Member States policymakers and social entrepreneurs should commit to promote and support the digital transformation of the social economy and encourage the uptake, scale-up/scale-out and duplication of innovative digitally-enabled initiatives. Areas of intervention have been identified. Resources for Research and Innovation as well as traditional sources of revenues play an important role for the development and take-up of digital technologies for and by the social economy. Likewise, the development of entrepreneurial and digital skills of social economy actors are needed to foster the vision of the European digital social economy. Collaborations between various stakeholders in nurturing environments (social clusters, creative spaces or incubators) may effectively promote the modernisation of the social economy by strengthening and growing digital native cohorts of social economy organisations. Finally, in order to promote cross-Member State growth of the social economy, it is advisable to harmonise the legal forms and statutes regulating the various actors of the social economy. This way, digital platforms and advanced technologies may truly contribute to the establishment of the European digital social economy fit for the societal challenges of the 21st century.

The ongoing digital transformation is crucial for the social economy as it presents both enormous opportunities and challenges. Digital technologies, such as online platforms, software applications (apps), distributed ledger technologies, the Internet of Things (IoT), cloud computing and Artificial Intelligence (AI), offer a wide variety of tools to support the creation of social values and the development and further expansion of the social economy. Budget constraints, digital skills shortages and technological gaps are clear barriers for the social economy to uptake new technologies. We selected 26 social economy organisations using innovative digital technologies effectively across Greece, Italy, The Netherlands and the UK. Our objective is to understand how they are working through the digitalisation process. The study, based on primary information and insights collected via personal interviews, workshops and on relevant literature, sheds light on the key questions stated above. Here we present highlights of the study.

Analysis of the impact of P2Ps and P2P supported projects. The focus is on the results of a pilot exercise that addressed three bio-economy networks (SUSFOOD, ERA-IB-2 and CORE ORGANIC II) and their supported projects. The brief draws on the results of an on-line survey of project beneficiaries of the three networks and on the findings of the interviews with network members and project beneficiaries. The discussion of the results is complemented where relevant with some of the findings of the survey conducted for the ERAC Ad-hoc Working Group on Partnerships in 2018, in order to identify challenges to the implementation of P2P-supported projects.

Social innovation has seen several different interpretations and definitions in recent years. Either considered as innovation with a ‘social twist’, or a facet of social entrepreneurship, or an innovation type that has to be distinguished from other types, social innovation has been central in academic and policy discourses especially in the context of dealing with societal challenges. Given this increasing importance, the aim of this paper is to identify the special features of social innovation and thus clarify the fuzziness around the multiple definitions, conceptualisations and interpretations. In particular the development of a typology of social innovation types is attempted largely based on the role of society in the innovation cycle. The paper concludes with reflections on the analysis and policy implications.

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are permeating any singleaspect of human life. Employing these technologies is vital for the modernisationof social services in terms of service design and delivery in areas such aschildcare, education and training, employment services or social care. This"social investment perspective" shows that social policy is not just a cost, butrather an investment for the future.

Research and Development (R&D) service firms make significant contributions to innovation in other businesses. The extant literature considers these firms a homogenous sub-group of Knowledge Intensive Business Service firms (KIBS). The objective of this study is to investigate how R&D service firms innovate and the variety of innovation practices within these firms. Employing data from semi-structured interviews with senior managers from 32 UK-based R&D service firms, we suggest that there are two different modes of innovation: in the first mode, R&D service firms innovate similarly to KIBS whose innovation is ad-hoc in nature and driven by customers’ requests; another group of R&D service firms innovate like New Technology-based Firms (NTBFs) relying more on structured in-house R&D activities.

This report presents the results of the analysis of the consolidated mapping of ICT-enabled social innovation initiatives promoting social investment gathered as part of the research project entitled 'ICT-Enabled Social Innovation to support the Implementation of the Social Investment Package' (IESI). The dataset includes 613 initiatives inventoried over the course of the research, out of which 300 have been mapped and are part of the IESI Knowledge Map 2016. The results of the analysis of the IESI mapping is meant to help policymakers and practitioners to use ICT-enabled social innovation to modernise EU welfare states, providing better and more efficient social services and increasing the skills, wellbeing and resilience of EU citizens. In this perspective, the documented research design, its proposed terminology, theoretical framework and findings contribute to the growing scientific interest and debate about ICT-enabled social innovations in the field of social services innovation and social policy redesign within the scope of the emerging discussion on the European Pillar of Social Rights and the future of welfare systems., JRC.B.4-Human Capital and Employment

This report presents the state of the art on the topic of entrepreneurship competence identifying and comparing different theoretical and practical approaches from the academic and entrepreneurial world. It draws on an extensive literature review, an inventory of selected initiatives and in-depth case studies. The report looks at different definitions, frameworks, components and other elements of entrepreneurship as a competence, and reflects upon entrepreneurship education, teaching and assessment methods used for entrepreneurial learning. This report is the final output of the JRC-IPTS funded study 'Entrepreneurship Competence: An overview of existing concepts, policies and initiatives (OvEnt)'; it is part of the wider research agenda of JRC-IPTS on 'ICT for Learning and Skills' that aims to provide evidence on how skills and key competences that our digital society needs are acquired, certified and recognised., JRC.J.3-Information Society

Research and development service firms (RDSFs), a subsector of knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS), provide contract R&D services to third parties for payment. They are a major generator of new technological knowledge serving manufacturing and non-manufacturing industries. Their innovation activities are in the up-stream of the knowledge creation value chain. This explorative study focuses on R&D service firms and their innovation activities. We have adopted a qualitative research design seeking to address the need to strengthen theory-building on service innovation, and in particular to extend the limited empirical evidence on RDSFs innovation. The literature on innovation in services and KIBS constitutes a strong theoretical foundation of this study. It provides the conceptual tools upon which we develop a working definition of RDSFs and ground our analysis. We examine the long-term development of the UK’s R&D Service Sector using secondary data. This builds a ‘real-life context’ for case studies on innovation in RDSFs. Qualitative research was conducted through semi-structured interviews with 32 firms in the UK. Analysis revealed the heterogeneous nature of these firms by identifying four main business models. Moreover, our findings point towards a clearly defined typology of RDSFs based on a combination of innovation drivers and outcomes. Four fundamentally different types of RDSFs can be identified: Technology-based innovation exploiters, Science-focused innovation explorers, Client-led innovation integrators, and Open innovation translators.This thesis contributes to the research on the supply side of R&D outsourcing by elaborating the development, business and innovation activities of RDSFs. It also contributes to understanding innovation in specific KIBS sub-sector by providing empirical evidence on the innovation processes of RDSFs.

In February 2014 Time magazine announced to the world that the first quantum computer had been put in use. One key component of this computer is the “Josephson-junction,” a superconducting device, based on completely different scientific and technological principles with respect to semiconductors. The origin of superconductors dates back to the 1960s, to a large-scale 20-year long IBM project aimed at building ultrafast computers. We present a detailed study of the relationship between Science and Technology making use of the theoretical tools of presumptive anomaly and technological paradigms: superconductors were developed while the semiconductors revolution was in full swing. We adopt a historiographical approach—using a snowballing technique to sift through the relevant literature from various epistemological domains and technical publications—to extract theoretically robust insights from a narrative which concerns great scientific advancements, technological leaps forward and business-driven innovation. The study we present shows how technological advancements, business dynamics, and policy intertwine.