This summer Innovation Norway will present  ideas and proposals based on  the so-called Dream Commitment process («Drømmeløftet»), through the Innovation Speech, Arendalsuka and several new reports.

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In 2015 Innovation Norway and its many partners arranged 84 different events, seminars and conferences all over Norway and  attached to our offices abroad.

We called this the Dream Commitment, a national brainstorming where the participants identified challenges and possibilities for Norwegian industry, and where we brought forth ideas regarding Norway’s journey from a unique industrial structure, through a transformation process to a new unique position.

We have made use of  this input as a basis for our own analytical work.

Innovation Norway  is the innovation policy adviser of its owners. We are to give advice on how we can develop instruments and target policies in such a way that we through the development of sustainable Norwegian businesses achieve growth and welfare.

We have now combined the input we got through the Dream Commitment  with our own analytical work and the one of others. We have used this material to develop our own narrative on challenges and opportunities, and — not least — in order to present concrete political advice on where to go now.

This work has, for instance, been used in the work on our new strategy, which will be published later this year.

On May 31, we present the Innovation Speech 2016 (Innovasjonstalen 2016) together with the Research Council of Norway and SIVA at a special event in Oslo. We have made use of this material when preparing our part of that speech.

The same day we will also publish the first in a series of report on the use of innovation as a tool to develop a re-calibrated industrial structure that can compensate for the fall in oil revenue, and businesses that can conquer new markets in areas where the world is looking for new solutions.

Innovation Norway has identifies six so-called opportunity areas where the needs of the world meets Norwegian competences:

• Clean Energy
• Ocean Space
• Bio-economy
• Tourism and creative industry
• Health and welfare
• Smart societies

The first report will be a crosscutting document which presents some of the most important observation and policy proposals. Next we will publish, one by one, a report for each of the six opportunity areas, all the way up till Arendalsuka in August.

In Arendal we are responsible for several events that will follow up on the Dream Commitment.

Per M. Koch

Read also the reflections made by CEO Anita Kron Traaseth and the chairman of the board, Per Otto Dyb, in the recently published annual report for 2015. They look at some of the messages we want to convey.

Photo: Choreograph