No set agenda for change

The regional authorities do not appear to have a clear agenda on how they could learn from the mobilization workshops. There is no clear mandate to support the continuation of mobilization or to use the mobilization process to bring the stakeholders’ views to the consideration of the regional authorities. As a result, the way the staff executes the mobilization process is in line with established practices: to use the workshops to spread information about the ERDF. Observing the discussion of the JP group provided valuable insight into the governing machinery behind the mobilization. There did not appear to be an ongoing agenda for transformation, as the role-distribution set up by the regional authorities was in line with the Stockholm model, instead of the kind of comprehensively and thoroughly planned interventions that smart specialization champions.

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The observations revealed misaligning ideas amongst the regional authorities, wherein some advocated for changing the Stockholm model, while others operated in accordance with it. The workshops may have had no defined part to play in a long-term strategic process and were instead effectively ad-hoc initiatives for calls during the soon to end program period. The mobilization significantly depends on the ERDF as the incentive, which highlights the limitations of it as a tool for regional mobilization, as it may not account for the contexts of the mobilized stakeholders.

Furthermore, judging from observing the SFP JP group, the authorities behind the platform do not appear convinced that the practice needs to change. The Stockholm model is a tested model that has gained legitimacy and trust. Despite this, there were some indications towards an interest in going further with the model than its current practice by learning from the stakeholders’ view, though this would require changes in how it is operationalized.

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5.3 Mobilization

In this section, the workshops are presented. First, a brief comparison provides a general overview of the representation within the assemblies. Subsequently, the two workshops are analyzed in order, with a discussion of emergent tensions observed during the mobilization workshops. This chapter intends to present observations from the workshop activities and how the agents engaged in the discussions.

Figure 2 presents a general overview of sectors represented in the workshops for comparison.

Public authorities include both local (municipal governments, their agencies, and associations) and regional level bodies (Region Stockholm and the county administrative board). Academic sector covers representatives from each of the universities. “Locally based innovation arenas” is an umbrella category covering science parks, clusters, foundations, and innovation platforms anchored in local development. While they constitute shared platforms where both public authorities and universities are owners, they are counted as separate due to their representation by directors representing their respective platform and its operations, and not its shareholders’. The broad category is chosen because the study does not cover detailed observations on their part in the interactions. The industry had only one representative from an association of engineers. “Other”

includes a branch of the labor movement (representing the civic sector), and two individuals who in the participation list were described as consultants.

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The two workshops differed noticeably in how the assembly was composed. Perhaps three observations are most striking at first glance. In the first workshop, the public authorities, and to some extent, the academic sector, had a considerably larger presence, compared to the second workshop (see Appendix 7 & Appendix 8 for a more detailed breakdown). Secondly, only one participant representing an innovation arena was present in the first workshop, whereas the second had a far larger presence of representatives from organizations in that category. As will be described further in this section, the differences were likely a result of the topics of the workshops, though this does not explain why the public authorities had fewer participants in the second workshop. This change due to representatives from Region Stockholm, who had been four in the first workshop, and only one in the second. Additionally, the representatives differed in their positions within their organizations, as was the case with the universities, where the first workshop had academia mostly represented by researchers. In contrast, the second had representatives from the universities specializing in strategic collaborations. Except for one representative in the second workshop, industry was not represented. The overall limited representation of the industry might be the most striking unbalance, especially considering Stockholm’s large industry and its importance for the regional economy and development.

Figure 2: Representatives by type of organization in the workshops

(See Appendix 7 and Appendix 8 for a more detailed overview and categorization.) 0

2 4 6 8 10 12

Public authorities Academic sector Industry other state owned

innovation partner locally based innovation arenas

Representatives by type of organization in the workshops

workshop, 30.08.2019 workshop, 09.09.2019

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Both workshops opened with a presentation held by the staff, comprising representatives from the national development agency and the chief secretary of the SFP. The presentations informed the group about the topic for the respective workshop and the ERDF program. The staff guided the discussions by presenting a set of open questions, that were the same in both workshops.⁹ The workshops did however, cover different topics and differed in how the assembly was seated together. As will be explained further in this section, the physical positioning of the participants may have had a great impact on the interactions.