An Overview of Models of Distributed Innovation. Open Innovation, User Innovation, and Social Innovation

This report discusses models of distributed innovation and how they differ in their nature, effects, and origins. Starting from Open Innovation, the paper analyses its methodological evolution, some of its applications, and the opportunities to apply it in a social context. Open Innovation has gained traction in the last ten years and because of this popularity, Open Innovation has been endowed with numerous meanings. This paper dives into the large literature associated with Open Innovation. First, this paper describes Open Innovation. Second, it explains how Open Innovation has evolved from a linear model of innovation to a model that includes feedback loops. Third, it describes the parallel evolution of Open Innovation and User Innovation, where users are actively involved. This new perspective on the user involvement further contributes to the evolution of Open Innovation into Open Innovation 2.0. Finally, the paper considers the role of Open Innovation in tackling societal challenges and how and if this new innovation process could help Social Innovation to find ways to scale up and reproduce successful results.