The future is our mission: Adlershof as a “world leader in impact innovation”
Essay by Prof. Dr. Klaus Fichter, director of the Borderstep Institute and professor at the University of Oldenburg
Many of us probably associate the former US president John F. Kennedy with the following, famous sentence: “Ich bin ein Berliner.” It was uttered almost two years after the wall was built amid the Cold War in front of the town hall in Berlin-Schöneberg. Now history, this sentence was a much-needed injection of hope in the 1960s. Today, another one of Kennedy’s speeches echoes in the 21st century and could inspire hope for our efforts towards more innovation and sustainability in times of crisis. In his widely acclaimed Moonshot speech in 1962, Kennedy said the following historic sentence: “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills.” Humans on the moon – even back then, this long-held dream of humanity seemed crazy and its realisation within “this decade” almost impossible. Following the speech, his vision became a mission, a grand national task, a joint effort to activate the best skills and technologies available and to consolidate them towards a specific purpose. In 1969, the dream became a reality and Moonshot advanced to become a model for human creativity, risk-taking innovative power, and a visionary entrepreneurial spirit.
Commissioned by WISTA Management GmbH and presented in 2019, these guiding principles have now been taken up by a study of the Berlin-based Borderstep Institute formulating “strategy options for the Science and Technology Park Adlershof 2030”. It was the result of numerous interviews and workshops with stakeholders of the “Adlershof ecosystem”. One of the study’s recommendations was to establish an interdisciplinary centre for developing solutions for the “Grand Challenges”. “Grand Challenges” refers to the complex, long-term problems facing the global community. They include topic areas like “Energy and Climate” or “Environment and Sustainability”. If left unresolved, they will have dramatic consequences. Because of this, they justify large investments in terms of resources and require an integrated, interdisciplinary approach that transcends technologies and industries. This proposal is embedded into a new paradigm of so-called mission-oriented research and innovation policy. In contrast to traditional “technology push” funding policy, which relies on application-oriented research and technology development to unfold a positive societal impact quasi-automatically, this new philosophy in research and innovation policy is ostensibly aligned with the Grand Challenges. The billions of euros worth of funding earmarked by the German government’s high-tech strategy, for example, is now tied to concrete missions like “plastic-free oceans” or “sustainable business in cycles”. John F. Kennedy’s Moonshot speech was also groundbreaking in the way he assessed technology. He characterised it as follows: “[T]echnology has no conscience of its own. Whether it will become a force for good or ill depends on man.” (cf. https://www.rice.edu/jfk-speech)
The idea of increasingly aligning the Science and Technology Park Adlershof with the great challenges of the future has been further refined over the past few years and will now be realised through a consistent mission orientation, excellent inter- and transdisciplinarity, powerful innovation communities and novel forms of collaboration in physical, virtual, and hybrid innovation spaces. This form of “next-level innovation” is solution-oriented, value-driven, and impact-oriented; the latter meaning that it is driven towards contributing to solutions to the Grand Challenges, including the decarbonisation of manufacturing and consumption, the circular economy, and resilient supply systems. Its way of working is collaborative, lean, agile, experimental, and geared both towards market success and social impact. Adlershof is now working concretely with a mission-oriented innovation philosophy. Its talent and “high potentials” are galvanised by the mission orientation. The newly established “Young Professional Board” is one example.
Adlershof and Berlin could become “world leaders in impact innovation”. However, this requires even more courage and a willingness to explore unchartered territory from everyone involved. We should draw on John F. Kennedy’s spirit of optimism and formulate a “Moonshot for Sustainability” for Adlershof and Berlin – an expression of a distinctly “Berlin” approach. This will create a common identity and, with it, more innovative strength for tackling the Grand Challenges. So that all those who believe in doing the “impossible” for a better future can take pride in the words: “Ich bin ein Berliner” – wherever they may live.
Prof. Dr. Klaus Fichter is the director of the Borderstep Institute for Innovation and Sustainability GmbH and professor of innovation management and sustainability at the Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg.