Jann de Waal on the knowledge and innovation contract 2020 - 2023: "A great opportunity for the creative industry"
On 14 November 2019, State Secretary Mona Keijzer (Economic Affairs and Climate) presented the knowledge and innovation covenant 2020 - 2023 (KIC). Companies, knowledge institutions and governments will jointly invest € 4.9 billion in 2020 in the government's updated top sector and innovation policy. The Creative Industry top sector also signed the covenant. But what does the new KIC actually mean for the creative industry, and where are the opportunities? An interview with Jann de Waal, frontman of the Creative Industry Top Team and founder of Info.nl. "The creative industry can make an important contribution to bringing innovations into society."
The top sector policy is changing. No longer the top sectors themselves, but four mission themes are central: Energy Transition & Sustainability; Agriculture, Water & Food; Health & Care, and Security. 25 specific missions have been formulated within these themes. In this way, the government is linking, much more emphatically than before, the innovative power of the top sectors to solving societal challenges. The new approach offers the creative industries both challenges and opportunities. Jann: “This way of working fits well with the creative industry. We already work for all those sectors. Moreover, doing work with a social impact is already very important for many creative professionals.”
Human dimension
According to Jann, the biggest benefit of the KIC 2020 - 2023 is that the role of the creative industry is clearly reflected in all four mission themes. “We have worked hard to put that role in the spotlight, and that has paid off. The missions require fundamental, applied and experimental research. The challenge of healthy living is not just about developing drugs against Alzheimer's, but also about: how do we ensure innovations in the field of prevention? How can we improve the lives of caregivers? These are topics to which the creative industry can make an important contribution."
“With the help of the Key Enabling Methodologies (KEMs), creative professionals come to people-oriented applications of new technologies and future-oriented interventions that get people moving”
Methods of the creative industry
According to Jann, two things are important for the coming years. “To be able to play the role that is expected from the creative industry, a good knowledge base is needed. New knowledge must therefore be developed through research. Creative professionals use Key Enabling Methodologies (KEMs) to find solutions to societal challenges. With this they come to people-oriented applications of new technologies and future-oriented interventions that get people moving. The KEMs are well positioned in all four missions. And that is good news, because in the coming years programs will emerge from which researchers and professionals from the creative industry can join. Programs and projects from CLICKNL itself, such as the field labs, but also from partners such as the Creative Industries Fund NL and NWO-SIA"
Economic opportunities of innovations
In addition, the creative industry furthers the Knowledge and Innovation Agenda (KIA) Social Earning Capacity, which supports the four mission themes and key technologies. The central question in this KIA is: how can innovation and transition processes be accelerated to actually realize the missions within the set time horizon? “The point here is to let innovations actually land in society, for example by developing revenue models. In this way, economic opportunities and social challenges go hand in hand. This fits very well with the way of working within the creative industry. Namely design thinking at system level; an integral, holistic way of innovating and organizing. Not only issues such as technology and behavior are included, but also regulations, for example. And because we play a leading role at this KIA, we can also properly monitor that creative professionals play a role in the implementation of projects.”
Local embedding
CIRCO is a good example of a project in which a design approach is used to provide people with tools for developing circular revenue models. “CIRCO sets entrepreneurs in motion and thereby acts as a catalyst. A great project that makes clear the added value of the creative industry in practice. The intention is to create more of these types of local projects, whereby knowledge developed at national level is applied by creative professionals. Ideally, we learn from that again at the national level. In this way we influence each other in an iterative process. The challenge in the coming years is to involve as many people as possible in the societal challenges and to ensure that we tackle it in an inclusive manner. I see it as a great opportunity for the creative industry to launch our working methods, methods and ideas and to involve everyone to help prosperity in the Netherlands go a step further. ”