Partner state policy is an approach in which the state enables and empowers user communities to create value themselves, and which also focuses on the elimination of obstacles.

There seems to be a lot happening on the policy front recently, or at least in terms of how influential observers are starting to think about the issues.

In the Financial Times a very significant editorial has appeared by user innovation expert Eric von Hippel and collaboration pioneer Michael Schrage. They stress how the new models of innovation is based on communities of leading edge users, and that policy should adopt.

They note some advances on this front:

“Denmark has been the first nation to turn this into policy. In 2005, the Danish government established “strengthening user-centred innovation” as a national priority. Sweden’s tradition of “participatory design” has positioned several of its industries to take good advantage of this phenomenon. Britain’s National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts has begun funding policy research in user-driven innovation. These early efforts are important and more will follow.”

They stress an important issue: it is not just about money, but mostly about empowerment, and crucially, policies that impeach user innovation should be avoided:

“The policy point here should not be to invite new subsidies for innovative users. The issue is “empowerment” not subsidy. Policymakers need the intellectual honesty and common sense to examine where existing innovation policies subsidise more traditional and more proprietary approaches at the expense of user-driven innovation.Policies discriminating against users undermine an economy’s ability to innovate and grow.”

This means that:

“Certainly, national governments and the European Union could use their procurement power and standards-setting influence to ensure that in healthcare, digital technologies, public education and energy networks, user-driven innovation infrastructures are granted parity with proprietary vendors. Patent-holders should not be allowed to smuggle protected property into a common space and later claim damages when that property is innocently used. The right to modify products that have been purchased must also be clarified; open standards must be supported.”

After citing the business potential of such policies, citing Google as an example, they conclude:

“Europe has an extraordinarily well- educated population all-too-frequently frustrated by institutional strictures and intellectual property constraints that make innovation more difficult than it needs to be. Rather than over-rely upon the past century’s innovation mechanisms of venture capital, targeted subsidies and national champions, policymakers should treat this global trend as an innovative opportunity. The rise of user-driven innovation is about the democratisation of innovation – an act of economic empowerment. Boosting economic empowerment is a powerful way of boosting growth.”

Earlier interesting contributions to the policy debate came from Charles Leadbeater and Philippe Aigrain.

The above editorial is not isolated. The progressive think thank Demos, which has a previous positive orientation towards participatory policies, has published a report, Unlocking Innovation, that specifically aims to use user innovation to directly change public policies.

For more background:

User Innovation, at http://p2pfoundation.net/User-centered_Innovation

The User-Generated Ecosystem, http://p2pfoundation.net/User-Generated_Ecosystem

User Innovation Theory, http://p2pfoundation.net/User_Innovation_Theory