The social dynamics of open innovation ecosystems determine who benefits from innovation, who participates in shaping it, and how innovation contributes to more inclusive and just transitions. These dynamics are shaped by several social dimensions, including awareness of societal impact, human-centric innovation, end-user involvement and alignment with just transition goals. 

This report aims to provide insights on how these social dimensions impact the role of Cultural and Creative Industries (CCIs) in open innovation ecosystems. The analysis draws on findings from nine ekip Policy Labs, which addressed the topics of Artificial Intelligence in CCIs, Immersive Media, Video Games and Inclusivity, the New European Bauhaus (NEB), crafts-led innovation, cross-innovation with performing arts, the platformisation of the music industry, and circularity in fashion. 

The paper summarises key challenges and offers policy recommendations to support CCIs in engaging with essential partners, including communities, audiences, and individuals with lived experience, in order to develop innovations that are meaningful, accessible, and socially grounded. 

How do the ekip policy labs work?

The ekip policy labs follow a three-step approach to develop evidence-based policy recommendations for the CCIs.

Setting the baseline Each Lab begins with a contextual analysis to understand the specific needs of CCI actors and stakeholders. This phase produces data-driven scoping documents that establish a baseline for each policy area.

Co-formulation phase Stakeholders then take part in dedicated Policy Labs, contributing expertise and insights to shape proposals collaboratively.

Policy recommendations The process concludes with the drafting of prioritised, data-informed policy recommendations outlining concrete actions and priority areas for future implementation.

The ekip open innovation methodology guides this process, using a set of key building blocks to address challenges across CCIs. For the broader creative ecosystems, which are: sustainable competitiveness, regulation and governance, social dimensions, investment and funding, infrastructure, research and innovation, and technological solutions.

Key Challenges for CCIs

Although not always recognised, social dimensions are crucial determinants of open innovation ecosystems. They shape the relationships and dynamics among innovation actors and thereby influence the innovation process and its outcomes. During the ekip Policy Labs, the shared challenges and experiences of CCIs regarding the social dimensions of open innovation ecosystems emerged as recurring themes in discussions among various CCI stakeholders. Concerns are rising about imbalances in capacities and resources, ethical considerations and human-centricity, user involvement, and alignment with the goals of a just transition. 

Transitions tend to deepen existing inequalities

Small or independent CCI actors, marginalised communities, speakers of minority languages and older crafts people are systematically at risk of being left behind by AI, platformisation, XR and circularity regulations. 

Structural imbalances in resources, capacities, and access to infrastructure consistently disadvantage smaller actors in transition processes. For example, in the case of AI, asymmetric power relations persist, as small CCI players and independent artists face significant constraints in terms of time, budget, and skills, while large platforms and technology firms control critical data and digital infrastructures, further widening inequalities. Similar dynamics are occuring in immersive media, where high development costs, specialised skills requirements and ongoing accessibility challenges limit participation to a narrow group of well-resourced actors. Meanwhile fragmented XR distribution networks and relatively small audiences contribute to uncertainty and precarious conditions for creators and small companies.  

The shift towards a platform-driven music economy has also reconfigured revenue streams and working conditions in ways that disproportionately affect independent artists, freelancers, and small-scale intermediaries, reinforcing existing structural vulnerabilities in the music industry. Similar patterns occur in the digitalisation of circular economy frameworks, where tools such as the Digital Product Passport (DPP) are data-intensive and require advanced digital capabilities, creating barriers for SMEs and CCIs with lower digital readiness and risking their exclusion from emerging circular value chains. 

Ethics & human centricity are recognised but not structurally embedded

Ethical AI, accessibility, social value, and care oriented innovation are repeatedly named, yet policy and funding frameworks continue to favour tech-driven, short-term or purely economic outcomes. 

Persistent complexities related to data transparency, the responsible use of copyrighted content and compliance with ethical standards such as FAIR data principles, the EU AI Act, UNESCO, and OECD frameworks highlight the gap between ambition and implementation of ethical standards in innovation processes.  

At the same time, artists are increasingly expected to adapt their work to platform logics and performance metrics, creating tensions between artistic intent and algorithmic optimisation. The absence of an integrated policy vision that embeds equity and accessibility across the CCI sectors, such as the gaming industry, further limits the adoption of ethical and human-centred innovation processes.  

Another concern is that formal evaluation frameworks rarely recognise experiential, social and process-based forms of value, such as audience engagement, embodied foresight and reflective practice, despite their importance for responsible innovation. As a result, the contribution of CCI actors to social innovation, care, cultural rights and community resilience continues to be undervalued in innovation policy, which remains primarily focused on technological and economic outcomes. 

End‑user participation is widely promoted but remains fragile

Findings from the ekip Policy Labs and related literature highlight co‑creation methods, such as living labs, game jams, and XR experiences as critical for engaging end-users in innovation processes, but note a lack of involvement of user groups, and a lack of resources to pay participants, leading to  a lack of insights on user needs.  

A recurrent challenge related to this matter is the lack of a shared language in innovation processes. An illustrating example is the persistent gap between technology developers and creative professionals. AI developers frequently lack understanding of the needs and working realities of the CCIs, while many creative practitioners lack the AI literacy needed to actively shape technological development. This leads to restricted involvement of CCI actors in innovation processes related to AI development, resulting in tools that do not fully meet the needs of creatives. 

There is a need for more effective living labs, open-source platforms and systematic involvement of end-users in innovation processes such as AI and XR development. This would help foster a better understanding of both current and future audiences and support the development of transformative innovation. For example, while the New European Bauhaus promotes participatory approaches, implementation often relies on existing knowledge and practices rather than fostering genuine co-creation with citizens and communities. End-user participation and community-based innovation is also constrained by a lack of accessible spaces, local networks and support structures that enable participation, knowledge exchange and intergenerational learning.  

The structure and cost of digital platforms can restrict users’ ability to participate in shaping them. Audiences are often treated as passive consumers, with limited awareness of how their behaviours influence artist remuneration and content visibility, and few opportunities to shape platform experiences according to values such as diversity, local culture, or support for independent creators. User participation on digital platforms is further constrained by accessibility barriers. For example, in the gaming sector, the cost and complexity of adapted controllers and accessible interfaces exclude many disabled and low-income users from fully engaging with gaming experiences.

At a structural level, siloed cultural and innovation infrastructures make it difficult to create spaces where end users, CCI actors and technologists can collaborate on equal terms. Methodologies and long-term frameworks are needed to support sustained co-creation and living lab approaches. 

Challenges related to the Just Transition

Challenges related to the Just Transition are most explicitly discussed in the ekip policy labs on NEB; Digital Product Passport; Unlocking Circularity in Fashion & CCIs and Cultural heritage institutions within open innovation-ecosystems but implicit justice questions such as fair remuneration, cultural/linguistic equality, accessibility, democratic participation run through the other policy labs as well. 

Discussions during several policy labs highlight the risk that the ongoing digital and green transition may deepen existing inequalities of access to data, infrastructure, skills and funding remains concentrated among larger and better-resourced actors. For example, in the AI field, unequal access to technological resources and market gatekeeping in funding and venture capital risk excluding smaller CCI actors from the benefits of the transition. Similar concerns emerge in the music sector, where platformisation risks widening inequalities and strengthens the need for equitable digital transition strategies. 

Although justice, inclusion and community-level fairness are recognised as important principles in societal transitions, they are not yet fully embedded in innovation policy and funding portfolios.  

In addition, calls for fair remuneration, meaningful engagement of artists and more inclusive infrastructures underline the importance of justice in how cultural labour and public participation are supported during transition phases. For example, cultural heritage initiatives such as the horizon project PITCH demonstrate how participatory approaches can support more just and sustainable transitions by addressing historical inequalities, fostering citizen trust and ensuring communities are actively involved in shaping green futures.

Key policy recommendations 

The ekip recommendations, as formulated in the context of each policy lab, stress the importance of the social implications of transition, human-centric and ethical innovation, involvement of end-users and connection to the just transition.  

Across sectors, the social impacts of digital and green transitions are emphasised as profound and far‑reaching. Several policy labs identify that small actors, marginalised groups, freelancers, and under‑resourced institutions in the CCIs face structural disadvantages, for example due to fragmented funding structures, lack of access to tools, or high administrative burdens. Many CCI stakeholders articulate the need to protect access to culture, participation, and representation, especially as digital ecosystems become dominant. Social fragmentation and reduced participation of minority groups, are repeatedly identified as critical issues.  

Many CCI sectors act as drivers of community cohesion, wellbeing, and social resilience, yet their contributions remain undervalued or invisible in mainstream innovation frameworks. Their role in supporting collective meaning‑making, social repair, and local empowerment is essential to socially sustainable transitions²⁹.  

A strong emphasis is placed on ensuring that innovation, particularly digital innovation, is rooted in ethical considerations and human dignity. In different policy labs digital transition challenges were highlighted related to algorithmic opacity, fairness, transparency, and accountability. CCI actors call for placing ethical obligations on platforms and technology providers to ensure that innovations do not amplify biases or harm creators and users. Human‑centricity also appears prominently in calls to recognise artistic, embodied, performing arts, craft‑based, and heritage‑based knowledge as integral to innovation.  Innovation is increasingly recognised as extending beyond technological advancement to include relational, experiential, and culturally embedded practices.  

Within various CCI subsectors, embodied foresight, creative experimentation, and collaborative working methods are highlighted as valuable and legitimate forms of innovation.  

The labs on CCIs enabling the green transition and on fashion/DPP emphasise that circularity and digital transparency tools must be designed responsibly to support sustainability without creating new social burdens or widening digital divides.  

Finally, linguistic and cultural diversity is recognised as an ethical dimension of innovation, especially in the music sector, where minority‑language content risks being sidelined by algorithmic systems unless diversity is safeguarded by design. 

End-users, citizens, audiences, communities, players, and workers, are widely recognised across all discussions as essential cocreators in meaningful innovation processes. 

Co‑creation, participatory methods, living labs, and user‑centred design are promoted, across different subsectors. These models support experimentation and ensure that innovation responds to real needs and lived experiences.  

Meaningful involvement requires creating infrastructures that enable safe experimentation and cross‑sector interaction. Discussions on Immersive media and XR highlight that scaling immersive technologies requires early audience involvement, continuous testing, and better engagement with end‑users to reduce the gap between technological development and real‑world use. There is a need for user literacy, digital, cultural, sustainability‑oriented in the video gaming and fashion industry, to ensure that end‑users can meaningfully navigate new systems, whether digital passports or accessibility features in games.  

A core pattern of the discussions is the need to align digital and green transitions with fairness, inclusion, and justice. Recurring recommendations include ensuring fair access to funding, infrastructures, skills, and digital tools, especially for SMEs in the CCIs, craftspeople, micro‑studios, independent creators, and community‑based institutions. CCI actors argue that without tailored support, many actors risk being excluded from transition pathways.  

Green transition policies must be financially and socially inclusive, supporting those most affected by new regulatory and market models. This includes aligning regulatory instruments such as the Digital Product Passport with stakeholder capacities and avoiding disproportionate burdens on small actors³⁵. 

The need to address power imbalances in platformised ecosystems is highlighted in different policy lab discussions, ensuring fair remuneration, transparent data governance, and equal opportunity for independent creators and micro‑entities to compete and innovate. This is presented as essential for both fairness and long‑term CCI competitiveness. 

The Just Transition must also be place‑based, decentralised, and community‑anchored. Strengthening local innovation ecosystems, networks, and infrastructures is presented as necessary to ensure that transitions benefit all regions and population groups, not only well‑resourced centres.

European actions for socially sustainable innovation ecosystems 

Taken together, the ekip Policy Labs find that CCI innovation in Europe must be socially grounded, human centred, participatory, and just. Whether addressing AI, immersive media, crafts, cultural heritage, digital fashion traceability, performing arts, gaming, or music, ekip results show that transitions must be designed to empower people, protect cultural diversity, and distribute benefits fairly across society. 

At the European level, policy action should focus on strengthening inclusion, equity, and social participation within digital and cultural transitions. Priorities include adapting funding frameworks to better support small-scale CCI actors, minority groups, and community-based innovators, while ensuring that linguistic, cultural, and social diversity is actively promoted through regulatory and programme-based measures. Greater integration of social innovation principles across EU policies, combined with multi-stakeholder governance approaches, can help ensure that communities and groups most affected by transitions are meaningfully involved in shaping policy decisions. 

Through Horizon Europe, particularly Pillar III Innovative Europe, the EU promotes cross-border collaboration between academia, industry, public authorities, entrepreneurs, and civil society to strengthen inclusive and interconnected innovation ecosystems. One of the four key strategic directions of the Horizon Europe strategic plan is to build interconnected, inclusive innovation ecosystems across Europe by drawing on the existing strengths of national, regional, and local ecosystems and respond to societal challenges for the benefit of society, including the green, digital, and social transitions. ³⁷.  

In practice, this is reflected in initiatives such as the European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL), an international non-profit network of user-centred, open innovation ecosystems that brings together public authorities, businesses, researchers, and citizens to co-create, test, and scale innovative solutions in real-life settings. 

Another example of initiative is MARIE. As part of this Interreg Europe project the Tampere Region developed a programme of Open Innovation Platforms (OIPs) aimed at fostering an open, inclusive, and collaborative culture of innovation. The programme provides support for platforms that bring together a diverse range of stakeholders, including companies, universities, students, researchers, public authorities, and civil society actors, to engage in co-creation and knowledge exchange. 

Taken together, these developments point towards a growing need for policy commitment to building CCI innovation ecosystems that combine technological advancement with social cohesion, cultural diversity, and equitable participation. Strengthening such socially responsible innovation ecosystems will be essential to ensuring that future transitions are not only innovative and competitive, but also fair, inclusive, and responsive to societal needs of the cultural and creative sectors.