Institute of Baltic Studies

PurposeAlthough the significance of technological progress in economic development is well-established in theory and policy, it has remained challenging to agree upon shared priorities for strategies and policies. This paper aims to develop a model of how policymakers can develop effective and easy to communicate strategies for science, technology and economic development.Design/methodology/approachBy integrating insights from economic complexity, competitiveness and foresight literature, a replicable research framework for analysing the opportunities and challenges of technological revolutions for small catching-up countries is developed. The authors highlight key lessons from piloting this framework for informing the strategy and policies for bioeconomy in Estonia towards 2030–2050.FindingsThe integration of economic complexity research with traditional foresight methods establishes a solid analytical basis for a data-driven analysis of the opportunities for industrial upgrading. The increase in the importance of regional alliances in the global economy calls for further advancement of the analytical toolbox. Integration of complexity, global value chains and export potential assessment approaches offers valuable direction for further research, as it enables discussion of the opportunities of moving towards more knowledge-intensive economic activities along with the opportunities for winning international market share.Originality/valueThe research merges insights from the economic complexity, competitiveness and foresight literature in a novel way and illustrates the applicability and priority-setting in a real-life setting.

In serious game design, there is a growing trend towards involving players more substantially in the development process. However, several scholars and practitioners agree that still more research and empirical data are needed to guide such participatory prototyping processes. So far, less focus has been put on the influence of co-creation and co-design on participants in the process. This article explores the co-creation and co-design process in creating a serious game called “Mission BioHero”, with a focus on sustainability and the bioeconomy. The game aims to engage citizens in the bioeconomy, help them learn in a fun and interactive way, and aggregate their ideas to shape bioeconomy policies. This serious game was fully co-created and co-designed with citizens and stakeholders from eight regions in five European countries. This research investigates the nature and impact of co-creation and co-design on game development and its driving success factors, explores educational capacities of this participatory process on participants, and evaluates its impact on the co-designed serious game. The findings draw upon empirical data gathered from the co-creation and co-design phases, participants’ feedback, and external game players’ input. The study confirms the value of the participatory design process in serious games design and offers methodologies, tools and lessons learned for similar future processes.

Abstract The article links upgrading in the global value chains with the triple helix concept by focusing on business-academia collaborations that played a part in firms’ capacity to upgrade. Both are crucial for Central Eastern European countries, which face the need to restructure their economies and escape the “middle income trap”. The article asks the following research question: how can public policy encourage business-academia collaboration or other types of activities that contribute to firm upgrading? Data on four different case studies in Lithuania is analysed to answer this question. Results indicate that building endogenous technological capacity through a variety of business-university collaboration types is needed to attract higher-value foreign direct investment and facilitate intersectoral and functional global value chain upgrading. Furthermore, besides research and development, educating and training the labour force are likely to be even more poweful drivers for business-academia collaboration in Central and Eastern Europe.

More than 80% of the energy produced in Estonia is provided by heat-and-electric power stations fueled with oil shale. Three oil shale processing chemical plants use oil shale as a raw material to produce synthetic crude oil and gas. There are three open pits and two mines involved in the extraction of the fossil, and three beneficiation mills involved in upgrading the fossil. More than 2 billion tons of commercial resources are concentrated in reserve oil shale fields, whereas about 1 billion tons are in functional ones. Production throughput capacities of the mining businesses, in terms of the mined bulk, are estimated to be 21 mln tons per annum. Of this, the share of the commercial-grade oil shale is 70%. With respect to the active part of the commercially exploitable reserves and the maximum possible level of their use, the exploitation of the Estonian part of the Baltic Oil Shale Basin can be secured for at least 100 years. Upon this, the factor determining such a prospect is availability of up-to-date technologies applicable to environmentally safe extraction and non-waste commercial use of the raw oil shale mined.

This extended abstract of a conference paper looks at the economic development in Central and Eastern Europe since the early 1990s. We argue against the common wisdom that that 1990s proved to be a 'lost decade' for most of the countries in the region rather than a period of successful catching up.