Autor: Osane Uriarte

Advanced niche market positioning for companies operating in upstream segments of industrial networks

Bart Kamp

Orkestra-Basque Institute of Competitiveness

Background in business sciences, industrial marketing, service sciences, information sciences Experience in research in the realm of service business development on behalf of industrial firms, international business, and market/competitive intelligence Affinity with techniques in support of big data analysis, particularly for the sake of market research

• Social Sciences and Humanities (SOC)
• Economic Sciences (ECO)
• Information Sciences and Engineering (ENG)

Companies that act as industrial niche players (like: hidden champions) typically compete based on being a specialist in a narrow field. Since the market segments that they operate in tend to be of a limited size (not mass markets moving billions of euros annually) they can often shield off these markets from big firms. Similarly, these niche players tend to be focused on manufacturing and product excellence, with traditionally less activity in service business. While such a focus strategy can be very profitable for niche operators, it can also have drawbacks. 1: focusing on a niche market implies that not a lot of information may be available on the international markets that these niche players target. 2: in the age of servitization, a focus on product quality alone may mean these firms lose out on additional business opportunities. 3: a specialist position vis-à-vis client’s value creation activities may imply that when such clients consider digitalizing their operations, these specialists may come under siege by versatile generalists that branch out and try to set overarching standards and invade outside of their (mainstream) territories. Against this backdrop, we propose to investigate how niche players can deploy business intelligence and development strategies -and the use they can make in this regard of big data analytics and smart service design- to decide upon international market positioning strategies, and thus safeguard or improve their competitiveness.

Kamp, B. (2017), Competitive strategies on behalf of international niche market leaders: evidence from the Basque Country. BOLETIN DE ESTUDIOS ECONOMICOS, Vol. 72 – N.º 221 – August, pp. 333-359. Journal Scholar Metrics 2010-2014: Cuartil 4 en la categoría Business, Economics and Management, posición 1.521/1.730. Revista indizada en ABI/Inform, EconLit, Periodicals Index Online, Dialnet. B. Kamp & G. Parry, Servitization and advanced business services as levers for competitiveness, Industrial Marketing Management, Vol. 60 (January) 2017, pp. 11-16. La revista está indizada en SSCI de WoS> JCR 2017: 3.678 Q1 en categoría Business (30/140) y Q1 en categoría Management (37/210). La revista indizada en Scopus> Scimago SJR 2017: 1.663, Q1 en categoría Marketing (20/173) Índice CiteScore de Scopus: 3.76, Q1 en categoría Marketing (13/157), percentil 92 Journal Scholar Metrics 2010-2014: Cuartil 1 en la categoría Business, Economics and Management, posición 41/1.730 Revista indizada en ABI/Inform, Business Source Elite, Business Source Premier, Communication & Mass Media Index, INSPEC, Psycinfo, Public Affairs Index, International Bibliography of Social Sciences, Periodicals Index Online. Chr. Kowalkowski, H. Gebauer, B. Kamp & G. Parry, Servitization and Deservitization: Overview, Concepts, and Definitions, Industrial Marketing Management, Vol. 60 (January) 2017, pp. 4-10. Impact indicators: same as previous publication. B. Kamp, A. Ochoa & J. Diaz, Smart servitization within the context of industrial user–supplier relationships: contingencies according to a machine tool Manufacturer, International Journal of Interactive Design and Manufacturing, 2017,DOI 10.1007/s12008-016-0345-0 La revista está indizada en Scopus> Scimago SJR 2017: 0.426, Q2 en categoría Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering (105/590) y Q3 en categoría Modeling and Simulation (134/614) Índice CiteScore de Scopus: 1.31, Q2 en categoría Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering (102/316), percentil 67, y Q3 en categoría Modeling and Simulation (100/238) percentil 57 B. Kamp & I. Ruiz de Apodaca, Are KIBS beneficial to international business performance: Evidence from the Basque Country, Competitiveness Review, 27(1) 2017, pp. 80–95. La revista está indizada en la colección principal de WoS dentro de ESCI (Emerging Sources Citation Index). La revista está también indizada en Scopus> Scimago SJR 2017: 0.274, Q2 en categoría Business and International Management (176/386) y Q2 en categoría Business, Management and Accounting (149/313). Índice CiteScore de Scopus: 1.22, Q2 en categoría Business and International Management (105/340), percentil 69, y Q2 en categoría General Business, Management and Accounting (63/195) percentil 67. Journal Scholar Metrics 2010-2014: Cuartil 2 en la categoría Business, Economics and Management, posición 837/1.730 Revista indizada en ABI/Inform, Aerospace Database, Business Source Elite, Business Source Premier, Civil Engineering Abstracts, Communication Abstracs, EconLit, Educational Research Abstracts, INSPEC, Metadex, Public Affairs Index, Academic Search Premier.

Project: Advanced Services Factory (AS-Fabrik) – Client: Bilbao City / Urban Innovative Actions: https://www.uia-initiative.eu/en (2017-2020) Project: Segment-Servitize-Scaling – Client: Diputation of Gipuzkoa (2018-2019) Project: International Niche Market Leaders and their relevance for international competitiveness and foreign trade – Client: Basque Government (2016-2017) Project: Analysis of Industry 4.0 and smart servitization as a policy priority for industrial reactivation in Gipuzkoa – Client: Diputation of Gipuzkoa (2016) Project: Smartization and servitization of the industrial texture of Biscay – Client: Department of Economic Promotion of the Biscay Deputy (2015)

Digital economy Enterprise Competitiveness Servitization Internationalization Clusters Policies see for mor information: https://www.orkestra.deusto.es/en/about-orkestra/research-labs-territorial-competitiveness

Through supervision of the candidate by representatives of several labs inside Orkestra and through creating possibilities for the candidate to participate in research activities under the responsibility of members from these different labs. Moreover, Orkestra as a host organization is a multidisplicary research hub in itself employing scholars with highly diverse background. Similarly, Orkestra forms part of diverse international networks that create additional opportunities for multidisciplinary exposure.

We are highly active with regard to smart specialization, related diversification, interregional and cluster cooperation, and industry 4.0 policies and constantly pursue project opportunities in this regard. Similarly, we interact with both regional and supranational organizations in view of policy design, analysis and evaluation.

Business associations in the realm of machine tools, information and communication technologies, and foreign trade-oriented business collectives in general.

We have strong relationships with local businesses and the research to be undertaken will benefit from close interactions with this business community (input to research). Similarly, our links with businesses and government will ensure that findings will find their way beyond the academic world and can be put to use by private and public actors.

The proposal is situated at the intersection of information science, business science and service science, and puts a unique focus on industrial niche players and the challenges they face as a consequence of blurring borders between sectors/markets and the traditional segmentation of market areas for specialists and generalists

Orkestra has a long tradition of striving for (and reaching) gender equality and also has a vast track record in hosting researchers from both the Southern and Eastern hemisphere of the globe. This is a signature mark of our Institute, now and in the future.

Deep learning for enhancing mobility in smart connected cities

Antonio D. Masegosa DeustoTech, Faculty of Engineering, University of Deusto Ikerbasque, Basque Foundation for Science

DeustoTech (www.deustotech.eu) is a private non-profit institution of the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Deusto for applied research in new technologies. Since 2005 DeustoTech mission is to support the ICT activity in business and society through research, the development of technologies, innovation and knowledge transfer. We focus our activity around TRLs 2-7 and articulate it into four applied fields: Industry, Mobility, Energy and Society, having a fifth, the Chair of Applied Mathematics, as a transversal activity and support for the previous four. We are characterized for working with data of heterogeneous nature, throughout its life cycle and in compliance with ethical principles and humanists who define the University of Deusto. DeustoTech is very active in the fields of deep learning and smart cities, as it proves its wide participation in H2020 projects in this areas such as TIMON (2015-2018, GA:636220 ; http://www.timon-project.eu ), POSTLowCIT(2016-2019, GA: 2015-ES-TM-0239-S, http://www.postlowcit.eu), LOGISTAR (2018-2021, GA: 769142, https://logistar-project.eu/) or MOMENTUM (2019-2022, GA: 815069), among others. In addition to this, the centre is highly active in international forums, as ECTRI, the European research association for sustainable and multimodal mobility and has the support of national and international external collaborators.

We are looking for post-doctoral researchers with a strong background in machine learning and/or deep learning for predictive analytics. The candidate must have a proven track record on publications in journals and conferences related to these areas. Good programming skills and experience in some of the next frameworks is required: Keras, Pytorch, Tensorflow, sci-kit learn, etc. Experience in research projects it is also desirable, particularly in H2020 or similar international programmes. Researchers with experience in the application of machine learning or deep learning techniques in any of the following fields will be especially welcomed: Smart Cities, Intelligent Transportation Systems, Travel Behaviour Analysis, Traffic Demand Analysis.

• Information Sciences and Engineering (ENG)

A large majority of European Citizens are living in urban environments. They live their daily lives in the same space, and for their mobility share the same infrastructure. Vehicle circulation in urban environments is responsible for 40% of CO2 emissions and for 70% of other emissions. In addition, transport users suffer from congestion which increases travel times, makes travel times unpredictable, increases operating costs, wastes fuel increasing air pollution. Blocked traffic may interfere with the passage of emergency vehicles or increase the chance of collisions. Congestion costs an estimated 1% of the EU total GDP or € 100 billion per annum. Smart cities and smart mobilities are two paradigms that aim at dealing with these problems in order to make a more sustainable, efficient and inclusive urban transport. The research will focus on the design and development of new deep learning architectures for different applications in smart mobility and smart cities. These new methodologies should be capable of fusing large amounts of heterogeneous data, with spatial, temporal and contextual information, in order to make predictions of different measures at a whole city level. The MSCA researcher is expected to work with complex deep learning architectures that combine different types of neural networks(LSTMs, CNN’s, Graph CNNs, etc.) that are able to deal simultaneously with heterogeneous data types (temporal series, images, text, etc.).

J. S. Angarita-Zapata, A. D. Masegosa and I. Triguero, «A Taxonomy of Traffic Forecasting Regression Problems from a Supervised Learning Perspective,» IEEE Access, In press. JCR Journal. Ranking Q1 P. Lopez-Garcia, A. D. Masegosa, E. Osaba, E. Onieva, A. Perallos, Ensemble Classification for Imbalanced Data Based on Feature Space Partitioning and Hybrid Metaheuristics, Applied Intelligence, 2019, In press JCR Journal. Ranking Q2 P. Lopez-Garcia, E. Onieva, E. Osaba, A. D. Masegosa, A. Perallos, A Hybrid Method for Short-Term Traffic Congestion Forecasting Using Genetic Algorithms and Cross Entropy, IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems 17(2): 557-569, 2016 JCR Journal. Ranking Q1 P. Lopez-Garcia, E. Onieva, E. Osaba, A. D. Masegosa, A. Perallos. GACE: A meta-heuristic based in the hybridization of Genetic Algorithms and Cross-Entropy methods for continuous optimization. Expert Systems with Applications, 55, 508-519, 2016 JCR Journal. Ranking Q1 X. Zhang, E. Onieva, A. Perallos, E. Osaba, V. C.S. Lee, Hierarchical fuzzy rule-based system optimized with genetic algorithms for short term traffic congestion prediction, Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies, 43 (Part 1): 127-142, 2014 JCR Journal. Ranking Q1

MOMENTUM: Modelling Emerging Transport Solutions for Urban Mobility. European Union’s Horizon 2020 Programme. Topic LC-MG-1-3-2018: Harnessing and understanding the impacts of changes in urban mobility on policy making by city-led innovation for sustainable urban mobility [Grant Agreement]. Coordinating Institution: EMT Madrid S.A. Total budget consortium: 2,927,875€. Total budget host unit: 204,000€. Duration: June 2019 – May 2022. LOGISTAR: Enhanced data management techniques for real time logistics planning and scheduling. Horizon 2020 programme – MG-5.2-2017: Innovative ICT solutions for future logistics operations [Grant Agreement 769142], Funding consortium: 4.997.548,75€. Funding host unit: 811.000€. June 2018 – May 2021. Low noise and low carbon freight delivery for Postal Operators to ensure last mile connections through optimized urban and long-distance transport (PostLowCIT), CEF Transport Programme, European Comission, 2015-ES-TM-0239-S, Funding consortium: 1.033.273€, Funding host unit: 302.925€, February 2016 – December 2019. TIMON: Enhanced real-time services for optimized multimodal mobility relying on cooperative networks and open data. Horizon 2020 – MG-3.5a-2014 – Cooperative ITS for safe, congestion-free and sustainable mobility [Grant Agreement – 636220], Funding consortium: 5.605.213 €, Funding group: 943.750€, June 2015 – November 2018.

The research posed in this thesis is located on the intersection among two knowledge areas, Intelligent Transportation Systems and Artificial Intelligence. Below, we briefly describe these areas: Intelligent Transport Systems: According to the EU Directive 2010/40/EU, Intelligent Transport Systems (ITSs) are advanced applications which without embodying intelligence as such aim to provide innovative services relating to different modes of transport and traffic management and enable various users to be better informed and make safer, more coordinated and ‘smarter’ use of transport networks. ITSs integrate telecommunications, electronics and information technologies with transport engineering. Artificial Intelligence: This discipline can be seen as a group of methodologies that aim at performing tasks that are usually assumed for humans as Natural Language Processing, Speech Recognition, Reasoning, etc. In this project, the MSCA research will mainly focus on deep learning, a subarea of Artificial Intelligence that has experienced great advances in the last decade, and it is the technology behind the main breakthroughs in Artificial Intelligence as superhuman performance in object detection in images or in speech recognition.

The two main disciplines that combine this proposal are Intelligent Transportation Systems and Artificial Intelligence. The background knowledge related to Artificial Intelligence will be provided by the scientist in charge, Antonio D. Masegosa. Dr Masegosa, awarded as IKERBASQUE Research Fellow, has a strong experience on Artificial Intelligence, particularly on metaheuristics and fuzzy systems, fields in which he has been working since he started his PhD in 2006. During this period he has published three books, 18 JCR indexed papers and more than 20 articles in both national and international conferences. The required expertise about Intelligent Transport Systems will be provided by other well-known researchers in DeustoTech. Concretely, two excellent researchers in this field as Dr Asier Perallos and Dr Enrique Onieva. Dr Perallos dean of the faculty of engineering. He has led more than a dozen of projects in this area and published nearly 20 JCR papers. In turn, Dr Onieva has also an extensive experience in this field where he accumulates more than 20 papers in JCR journals. Furthermore, the interdisciplinarity will be also strengthened through the collaboration in on-going H2020 projects as LOGISTAR or MOMENTUM.

The research proposed in this project is aligned with the H2020 societal challenge on Smart, Green and Integrated Transport, especially with two of its key objectives: – Better mobility, less congestion, more safety and security. As will be explained below, the research done in this thesis could contribute to reducing congestion and road traffic accidents. Global leadership for the European transport industry. The research proposed here would help to improve the design, planning and reliability of European distribution networks, and therefore to the global leadership of the European transport industry. – Furthermore, it is also well aligned with the societal challenge on Energy and Transport of the upcoming European Framework Programme, Horizon Europe; and with the United Nation’s Sustainable Goals 11th and 13th on Sustainable Cities and Communities, and Climate Action, respectively.

The research proposed in this offer is aligned with on-going H2020 projects in DeustoTech as LOGISTAR or MOMENTUM. In these project participate companies as Nestle UK, Pladis, Ahlers, Software AG, Aimsun or Nommon among others, and cities as Madrid, Leuven, Regensburg or Thessaloniki. The candidate will be in close cooperation with the researchers that are working on these projects so he/she will interact with these stakeholders which will provide valuable feedback to him/her, and which will follow the results of this investigation closely. This will for sure help to increase the chances of transferring the outcomes of the research accomplished in this project.

These advances with respect to the state-of-the-art foreseen in this project would have a high impact on urban mobility. Some of the main impacts are the following: – Improve design, planning and reliability of urban distribution networks. Travel times among hubs, customers, factories, providers, warehouses, etc. are pivotal in the design and planning of last mile distribution networks. The research posed here will allow us to carry out these tasks using more precise and rich information about travel times, which would result in higher reliability. – Reduce traffic congestion. Routes passing through road stretches with a higher probability of congestion are usually subject to lower reliability in travel times. If users are better informed about these facts, they will tend to avoid these routes. – Reduce traffic accidents. The stress motivated by bad travel planning or unexpected road conditions is an important cause of road accidents. The systems developed in this thesis would help the users to do better planning and to be aware of possible delays. – Reduce urban pollution. One of the aspects foreseen in this project is the use of deep learning to predict urban pollution, which will contribute to alert in advance urban authorities, helping them to take the best possible actions to mitigate high-pollution scenarios.

The main innovative aspects of the hosting offer are the following: Analysis of Open Data and Volunteered Geographic Information to take advantage of this publicly available data and provide valuable insights to citizens. Use of new Big Data technologies to deal with the vast amount of data available nowadays in cities, particularly due to the increasing digitalization of cities, thanks to the popularity of the smart city concept. Development of advance Deep Learning architectures capable of dealing simultaneously with information of a diverse nature as images, trajectory data, text, etc. Analysis of new forms of mobility as car-sharing, car-pooling, hailing services, bike-sharing services, etc. in order to help the cities understand what could be its impact on the mobility patterns of citizens.

One of the University of Deusto’s key duties is to be fully aware of problems within the institution itself and the society we live in. For this reason, it should take specific steps to boost integration and real equality of opportunity for people with specific support needs. The timely specific action is required to enable them to enter higher education in equal conditions and ensure their full integration in the university community. DeustoTech, as one of its institutions, is included in this service of social action and inclusion. The main aims consist of achieving full normalisation, equal opportunities and gradually adopting the steps needed to ensure that the University of Deusto is an inclusive educational institution. Furthermore, the University of Deusto provides them with guidance and support on the transition to the labour market jointly with special job centres and companies at large.

Service Learning for Developing Extreme Citizen Science

Aitziber Mugarra Elorriaga https://www.deusto.es/cs/Satellite/deustoresearch/es/inicio/centros-equipos-e-investigadores/equipos-de-investigacion/economia-desarrollo-e-innovacion-social-para-las-personas-edispe-/equipoinvestiga Cruz Enrique Borges Hernández https://energia.deusto.es/people/members/cruz-enrique-borges-hernandez/

Social Development, Economy & Innovation for People (EDISPe2), research group with multidisciplinary background (Economics, Management and Law). Our research areas are: 1.- Social and solidarity based economy, entrepreneurship & social innovation for sustainable development: based on accumulated expertise in organizations of social & solidarity based economy, its values & principles, its economic, social & environmental impact for a balanced and cohesive growth. 2.- Construction of a legal, economic governance & management environment for all people: combining legal, economic & social perspectives, specially focusing on European area. 3.- Service-Learning as a transformative pedagogical tool, for building committed citizenship. EDISPe2 team participates in national & international networks, counting on abundant scientific publications & contributions in congresses, as well as teaching experience at all levels of study. It is remarkable its leadership & participation in European projects & research projects developed in co creation with public or social organizations. http://www.research.deusto.es/cs/Satellite/deustoresearch/es/centros-equipos-e-investigadores/equipos-de-investigacion/economia-desarrollo-e-innovacion-social-para-las-personas-edispe-/equipoinvestiga In collaboration with DeustoTech Energy ○ http://www.research.deusto.es/cs/Satellite/deustoresearch/es/centros-equipos-e-investigadores/equipos-de-investigacion/deustotech-energy/equipoinvestiga

Candidates should have a PhD in Social Sciences and Humanities (Law, Economics, Sociology, Education, Politics…) or Information Sciences and Engineering, with research experience in areas related to service learning, social applications of technology, citizen science. Personal skills as flexibility and team work abilities are necessary.

• Social Sciences and Humanities (SOC)
• Information Sciences and Engineering (ENG)

Social innovation is the process of involving the society in the resolution of its current and future needs using interdisciplinary methodologies. One of the most valuable competences to progress towards that objective is to involve the society in carefully design citizen science projects. Thus, not only the citizen improves their scientific knowledge but also contribute to the community. One of the best ways to introduce the society in citizen science projects is by use the service learning methodology to involve students that learn the scientific method while solve a community problem. This way, it is built a triple win scenario: students get a more significative learning, a social problem gets solve and the social empowerment increase. This research program aims to produce innovative citizen science initiatives in students by the use of service learning. The main research aims are: ● Build a framework for creating extreme citizen science projects using service learning methodology. ● Assess the best strategies not only to involve the different stakeholders but also to achieve the best scientific results from these types of projects.

MUGARRA ELORRIAGA, A.; BORGES HERNANDEZ, C. & GARCIA PEREZ, A. (2015) “Ciudades amigables para todos: investigación-acción universitaria en accesibilidad urbana a través de OpenStreetMap (OSM) [Friendly Cities for All: University Action-Research in Urban Accessibility through OpenStreetMap (OSM)]”, in Aprendizaje-Servicio en las universidades: de la iniciativa individual al apoyo institucional. Ed. UNED, pp.245-257 ISBN 978-84-60828747. GARCIA PEREZ, A.; MUGARRA ELORRIAGA, A. & VILLA, A. (2017) “Responsible University Social Innovation as a Framework for the theoretical foundation, development and evaluation in community of Service-Learning projects”, Educación y Diversidad, revista interuniversitaria de investigación sobre discapacidad e interculturalidad 10(2) julio-diciembre, pp.77-86 ISSN: 1888-4857 (CIRC 2012: Grupo C) Retrieved from http://www.grupo-edi.com/anuario_list.php?ano=2016(2) GARCIA PEREZ, A., VILLA SANCHEZ, A. & MUGARRA ELORRIAGA, A. (2018) “Procesos de investigación-acción en Aprendizaje y Servicio Solidario: percepciones de los protagonistas pedagógicos en el proyecto Hiri Lagunkoiak [Action-research processes in Learning and Solidarity Service: perceptions of the pedagogical protagonists in the Hiri Lagunkoiak project]” RIDAS Revista Iberoamericana de Aprendizaje-Servicio (5) ISSN: 2339-9341, pp.62-86 (DOI10.1344/RIDAS2018.5.5) FOLGUEIRAS, P.; OPAZO, H.F.; MUGARRA ELORRIAGA, A.; ARAMBURUZABALA, P. & RUIZ, A. (2018) “Service-Learning: A survey of Experiences in Spain” Education, Citizenship and Social Justice. pp.1-19 https://doi.org/10.1177/1746197918803857 (2016 SJR (SCImago Journal Rank) Score: 0.272 | 567/1066 in Education (Scopus®)) MUGARRA ELORRIAGA, A.; ALONSO, A.; BORGES, C.E.; ECHANIZ BARRONDO, A.; GARCIA PEREZ, A.; GOMEZ GOIRI, M. & PIJOAN, A. (2018) “¿Cómo desarrollar un proyecto socialmente innovador de aprendizaje-servicio para construir participativamente Ciudades Amigables para todas las personas? [How to Develop a Social Innovative Project of Service-Learning to Build in a Participative Way Friendly Cities for All?]” in the collection Social Briefing, Ed. Universidad de Deusto. ISBN: 978-84-16982-50-9.

Social Innovation, Driving Force for Social Change (SI-DRIVE), (2014-2017) for European Union, coordinated by the University of Dortmund. SOLIDUS: Solidarity in European societies: empowerment, social justice and citizenship, (2015-2018) for European Union (Horizon 2020). Friendly Cities for All People, in 2016 for Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT) Currently, we are in the preliminary stages of identifying new opportunities for upcoming national and European calls in these areas.

The proposal fits in the core objectives of the Interdisciplinary Research Platform “The Ageing and wellbeing” in particular, it will mix knowledge of the following fields: ■ Education: The participation of students in any citizen science project by the use of the service learning methodology produce a continuous reinforcing through all the value chain (from students to researchers and finally the citizens). It is vital to create innovative educational materials to ensure the best impact of the project. ■ Social Sciences: The main problem of citizen science project is to maintain the long term participation of the citizens. Innovative ways of produce civic engagement will be researched in this project. ■ Engineering: Humans have been demonstrated to be better than algorithms at solving very complex problems. Several engineering problems could be transformed in citizen science activities that can have a twofold objective: on the one hand, to teach the basic principles of the problem in question and, on the other hand to learn how humans solve these problems. The final objective is to learn how humans face up complex problems and introduce this knowledge in an algorithm.

Interdisciplinarity is, in fact, one of the strengths of the host unit, with members specialized in Economics, Engineering, Education, Law and Social Science; as a consequence, the projects and academic publications given by the research team count on a combination of these methodologies and perspectives. Synergies of this proposal with projects developed by the research teams involved at this moment are expected

The project is aligned with H2020 topics: first: Science with and for Society, and second: Europe in a changing world – Inclusive, innovative & reflective societies. In particular with the challenge: “Economic recovery and inclusive and sustainable long-term growth with focus on co-creation for growth & inclusion: engaging citizens, users, academia, social partners, public authorities, businesses including SMEs, creative sector & social entrepreneurs”

The research team has a wide experience in co-creating research projects with public and private agents, mainly Portugalete Council, Zerbikas Foundation, and a diversity of social and educational organziations. According to the topic defined with the candidate, collaboration with other agents will be enhanced and supported by the team.

Social impact will be promoted since the design of the research project to be developed by the candidate, enhancing co-creation with the actors involved (e.g. regional policy makers or social organizations). Equally, the participation of social agents during the research will be particularly supported by the team. The dissemination of the results will be done not only at scientific level but also through the web and blog of the team as well as through public seminars and meeting with public officers, aiming to reach the society and policy makers.

As expressed above, the proposal focuses on imagining new solutions based on the collaborative participation of different organizations, based in the prominence of civil society and community commitment in the search for innovative solutions.

Inclusion dimension is a key aspect in the research team aimed to involve the society in carefully design citizen science projects. Gender issues and inclusion are cross cutting topics in the team scientific results. As expressed in the proposal, its aim is to introduce the society in citizen science projects using the Service-Learning methodology to involve citizens that improve their scientific knowledge but also contribute to the community.

Regional competitiveness policy for grand societal challenges

Dr. Edurne Magro https://www.orkestra.deusto.es/en/about-orkestra/team/423-edurne-magro-en

Orkestra – Basque Institute of Competitiveness is a centre for analysis and debate on territorial competitiveness. Orkestra was created in 2006 within the Deusto Foundation at the University of Deusto. The Institute is the result of the different strategic, private and public initiatives which converge with the aim of building competitive societies and enterprises as a key condition for prosperity and welfare. Orkestra’s research aims to be transformative.This type of research is defined by analysis, reflection, evaluation and the proposal of actions, in a permanent form, aimed at providing innovative answers for the resolution of the challenges considered, while research knowledge is acquired. http://www.orkestra.deusto.es

Background and advanced knowledge in economic geography, public policies, innovation studies or other social sciences. Experience in and the capacity to coordinate research projects. Proficiency in English, good command in Spanish will also be highly valued. The candidate should also have skills for conducting quantitative and qualitative research, including the ability to engage with stakeholders and to write research reports with a policy-oriented view. Evidence of the capacity to publish in journals of academic impact will be positively valued. The candidate has also to demonstrate the willingness to work in collaboration with others and in an open manner. Other relevant skills include the ability to communicate,capacity for teamwork and motivation for researching and innovation.

• Social Sciences and Humanities (SOC)

The area of competitiveness policies and more specifically innovation policies, has shifted in the recent times from a horizontal approach to a directional one. On the one hand, in the area of regional policies, it is widely acknowledged that regions should focus or specialise in those activities in which they have capabilities, in order to be competitive. This idea has been included in the Smart Specialisation Strategies promoted by the European Commission. On the other hand, innovation policies should be addressed towards grand societal challenges, following the latest approaches (transformative innovation policy, mission-oriented innovation policy). However, little research has been conducted to explore the role of regions for addressing grand societal challenge and how regional competitiveness policies should evolve for that. This position offers the possibility of exploring this link by experimenting in regional research projects in the area of competitiveness policy-making and contributing to European projects and proposals in this field.

Aranguren, M.J., Magro, E., Navarro, M and Wilson, J. (2019) Governance of the RIS3 entrepreneurial discovery process: Looking under the bonnet of RIS3. Regional Studies 53 (4), pp. 451-461. Magro, E., Wilson, J.R. (2018). Policy-mix evaluation: Governance challenges from new placebased innovation policies. Research Policy. DOI: /doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2018.06.010 Uyarra, E., Flanagan, K., Magro, E., Wilson, J.R. and Sotarauta, M. (2017). Understanding regional innovation policy dynamics: Actors, agency and learning. Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space 35 (4), pp.559-568. Magro, E., Navarro, M. & Zabala-Iturriagagoitia, J.M. (2014). Coordination-Mix: The Hidden Face of STI Policy. Review of Policy Research 31 (5): 367–389. DOI: 10.1111/ropr.12090 Magro, E. and Wilson J.R. (2013). Complex Innovation Policy Systems: Towards an Evaluation Mix. Research Policy, 42: 1647-1656.

The host research unit combines regional research projects in collaboration with regional stakeholders with international (mainly European supported) research projects in other to bring together local and global knowledge to tackle regional competitiveness challenges. As a brief overview of on-going and possible future projects in the regional competitiveness policy area the following can be highlighted: – Impact of internationalisation strategies of Basque firms in the SDGs of host countries. (on-going) . Basque Government. – Evaluation of internationalisation collaborative policies (on-going). Participants: Basque Government, Provincial Council of Bizkaia, Provincial Council of Araba, Provincial Council of Gipuzkoa, Orkestra. – MANUMIX: Innovation policy-mix learning for advanced manufacturing in European regions. (on-going) European Commission (INTERREG Programme). Participants: Innobasque, Basque Government, Orkestra, Mosta, Government of Wales, Piadmond. – Territorial Responsible Research and Innovation for Sustainability (proposal submitted to H2020, under evaluation)

The research area of regional competitiveness policy for societal challenges brings together different knowledge disciplines and therefore interdisciplinarity is at the core of the offer. The offer aims to integrate knowledge from regional sciences, economic geography, political science, innovation studies and social issues.

The team members of the hosting organisation are experienced in the described knowledge fields so together the projects and activities of the organisation are interdisciplinary by nature. In addition, the transformative research approach taken by the organisation requires interdisciplinary in the projects’ development. As proof of this interdisciplinary the academic publications of the host organisation’s researchers include a wide range of journals. The same approach is applied to research networks.

The knowledge fields in which the offer is embedded links with two main European approaches to innovation policy: the regional approach to smart specialisation strategies and the FP9 approach towards mission-oriented policies. These also can be linked to the concept of Responsible Research and Innovation included in the H2020 Science with and for Society Work Programme and more generally to how regional policy can address SDGs.

The transformative research approach of the host organisation involves a continuous engagement with regional stakeholders (mainly policy-makers, research organisations and companies), all of them embedded in the regional smart specialisation strategy. In addition, the on-going projects are intrinsically linked with the regional S3 priorities (i.e. Advanced Manufacturing). Finally, the organisation collaborates with wider international stakeholders (mainly from academic organisations, but also policy-makers from other European countries/regions).

As explained above, the transformative research approach of the host organisation, which involves continuous engagement with stakeholders for action, guarantees the dissemination and impact of the research results. In addition, the organisational position in international networks guarantees diffusion of the results in a wider, European and international framework.

There is a wide consensus in both theory and practice that competitiveness policies, especially innovation policies, need to address societal challenges, including SDGs. However, there is little reflection about the role of regions and regional policy to that respect. This gives room for experimenting in some regions with new approaches of regional competitiveness policies for sustainability as well to contribute to the state of the art. The offer will facilitate the experimentation in practice with transformative aims and a platform for academic publications.

The research area itself introduces societal challenges into regional competitiveness policies with a perspective of inclusion of social groups following a holistic approach. That means that how to guarantee inclusion, not only in terms of defining societal challenges but also with regards the inclusion of all types of societal groups in regional policy making will be considered as a research topic.