Towards Knowledge and Data Fusion Community

Knowledge Sources, Transfers and Co-Creation in Externally Funded Research

and Development Consortiums

Rauno Pirinen

Laurea University of Applied Sciences, Espoo, Finland

Keywords: Adaption, Co-Creation, Continuums, Integrative Model, Knowledge Association, Knowledge Transfer,

Learning by Research and Development, Partnership, Research Consortium, Resilience.

Abstract: One of the most important functions of every externally funded research consortium, e.g., FP and

HORIZON, ACADEMY and TEKES, is to contribute to knowledge transfers and research and development

related continuums between research programmes, higher education institutions, world of work, authorities,

and actors of regional-national-union policy development and decision making. This empirical study is

intended to the data and knowledge which can be transferred and co-created with participators as well as to

the partnership relations of research consortium that can exploit parallel the data and knowledge sources,

transfers, future continuums and high-value impacts in research-development-innovation processes. In this

study, user and stakeholders needs, proactive views and operational scenarios stimulates the knowledge and

data fusion user community to foster proactive involvement of stakeholders following a user-stakeholder-

centric approach in the validation and utilisation of knowledge sources and transfers, addressing to: user and

stakeholder needs and requirements, user experience, animated and interactive design, legacy systems

connectivity, interdisciplinary and co-creativity over vary silos and mutual trust building.

1 INTRODUCTION

The important focus of higher education is on

achieving a role as a co-operator and trusted partner

of higher education functions, knowledge

management, R&D (research and development)

networks, and research consortiums and on

combining useful knowledge from multiple sources

and co-creating it with other participating actors for

novel and beneficial competences and capabilities

related to authentic R&D&I (research &

development & innovation) programmes and

projects, clusters, innovation systems, industry,

collective research consortiums, regional-national

configurations, policy development and decision

making organisations and institutions.

At the center of this knowledge fusion and

mobilisation is a collective way of R&D-related

learning and knowledge sources and transferring.

Here, the setting of this study involves R&D&I and

adaptive-resilient learning integration and research

consortiums as the operative environment of this

study, in where the role of higher education

institutions is traditionally seen as contributors of

new knowledge, services models and technology. In

this view, new types of action, integration,

aspiration, trust, confidence and collaboration are

required for the stimulation of creative and adaptive

innovations in services, technology, economy and

society.

In this way of “integrative learning” or

“adaptive-resilient learning”; an individual learns

alongside with a workplace, school and R&D

community, near with a learning organization and

focused learning in region-global scale. The

expected advances of this integration can be

associated through various formal and informal

structures such as R&D networks, actors and

partnerships, especially to a growing students and

learners to become specialized in their areas of novel

expertise where an applicable knowledge is

produced and mobilised in the collective R&D

related learning processes, with structures of

consortiums and partnerships.

The term “integrative model” is designed here to

the learner-centred and user-stakeholder-centered

integration of R&D&I projects, higher education

Pirinen R.

Towards Knowledge and Data Fusion Community - Knowledge Sources, Transfers and Co-Creation in Externally Funded Research and Development Consortiums.

DOI: 10.5220/0006450700850092

In Proceedings of the 9th International Joint Conference on Knowledge Discovery, Knowledge Engineering and Knowledge Management (KMIS 2017), pages 85-92

ISBN: 978-989-758-273-8

functions and regional-national-global development.

The focus of “integrative way” is on collaborative

means acting and learning in an interoperable and

co-creative manner with other learners which are

encouraged to develop their own ideas and train in

competences to become developers and researchers

at a regional-national-international level.

The “study of knowledge” is called epistemology

in literature. However, no single agreed upon

definition of the term “knowledge” exists; there are

numerous theories to explain knowledge and its

sources, paths and transfers. In this study, the

rationality and motivation to the description of the

realized knowledge sources, transfers, knowledge

transformations and knowledge achieving approach

is in usefulness of these themes and categories for

the data collection, data fusion, knowledge fusion,

analysis and triangulation in real R&D&I cases,

research consortiums, and externally funded R&D,

especially for implementation and design of

thematic studies and for more resilient configuration

and its integration strategy as adaptive-thematic

curriculum in higher education.

2 LITERATURE

The related literature for the progress of integrative

and user-stakeholder-centric data fusion community

model was followed: the sense of interactions and

collaborative functions of higher education

institutions and regional configuration, governance

policy, and strategy scenarios (Harmaakorpi, 2004);

Democracy and Education (Dewey, 1916)

“education is not an affair of telling and being told,

but an active and constructive process”; learning to

work creatively with knowledge (Bereiter, 2007);

situated cognition and the culture of learning

(Brown, et al., 1989); learning by expanding as an

activity-theoretical approach (Engeström, 1987); the

new production of knowledge (Gibbons, et al.,

2008); experiential learning (Kolb, 1984): the

critical theory of adult learning (Mezirow, 1981);

action learning (Revans, 1982); knowledge building

theory (Scardamalia and Bereiter, 2006); the school

as a center of inquiry (Schaefer, 1967); metaphors of

learning (Sfard, 1998); situated learning (Lave and

Wenger, 2009); and interaction between learning

and development (Vygotsky, 1978).

The foundation for the “knowledge economy”

was introduced in the book The Effective Executive

(Drucker, 1969). Drucker describes the difference

between the manual worker and the knowledge

worker. The manual worker, according to him,

works with his hands and produces goods or

services. In contrast, a “knowledge worker” works

with his or her head not hands, and produces ideas,

knowledge, and information. For the setting of this

study, (Piore and Sabel, 1984) explains how new

and flexible production technologies are

transforming and transferring. References (Best,

1990) and (Porter, 1990) explain how such

production networks, which are resilient and

dynamic, take the form of regional or territorial

production systems (Asheim, 2012; Best, 1990;

Rutten and Boekema, 2012; Storper, 1997). The

term “knowledge economy” and its implications for

the organization of production and services are

currently accepted in mainstream economic thought

literature, followed (Best, 1990; Cooke and Morgan,

1998; Piore and Sabel, 1984; Porter, 1990).

As understood in the context of this study,

orientation of (Schumpeter, 1939) advises five

possible meanings to the term “innovation”,

followed: new goods; new processes; new markets;

new sources of supply of new materials; and new

organizational status. Article by (Tichy, 1998)

maintains followed: “innovation is as organizational

capability which includes: scientific; technological;

socioeconomic and even cultural aspects.”

Reference (Geffen and Judd, 2004) advocates that,

“the successes of commercialization and

commercialized advantages are major determinant of

innovation”. Probable, the most fitting for this study

is proposal by (Galanakis, 2006), which places a

broader meaning to the term “innovation”, such as:

“the creation of new products; processes; knowledge

or services by using new or existing scientific or

technological knowledge, which provides a degree

of novelty either to: the developer; the industrial

sector; the nation or the world; or to succeed in the

market place.”

The foundation of higher education itself has

long traditions. For example, a strong resonance of

this R&D related study of knowledge transfers can

be found far behind the Democracy and Education

(Dewey, 1916, 33), “education is not an affair of

telling and being told, but an active and constructive

process.” Then, Dewey continues: “Its enactment

into practice requires that the school environment be

equipped with agencies for doing, with tools and

physical materials, to an extent rarely attained. It

requires that methods of instruction and

administration be modified to allow and to secure

direct and continuous occupations with things. Not

that the use of language as an educational resource

should lessen; but that its use should be more vital

and fruitful by having its normal connection with

shared activities.” Reference (Revans, 1982)

describes the term “action learning” which

particularly obliges subjects to become aware of

their own value systems, by demanding that the real

problems tackled carry some risk of personal failure,

so that “the subjects can truly help each other to

evaluate in what they may genuinely believe”

(Revans, 1982, 627).

In earlier context of this study, the action

learning processes within action research

frameworks were used as learning processes for

development of the capabilities and professional

competences of individuals, teams, overall

organizations and emergent network (Lewin, 1942).

In the context of this study, the term “Learning by

Action Research” was understood as action learning

process whereby the learner studies their own

actions and experience in order to improve

professional competence, capability and

performance (Lewin, 1946; Mezirow, 1978; Revans,

1982). Here, learners acquire knowledge through

action and practice with co-instructions, learning

space, living lab, test bed, workplace, consortiums,

and communities of work.

According to (Sfard, 1998, 5), the acquisition

metaphor of learning is old: “Since the dawn of

civilization, human learning has been conceived of

as an acquisition of something.” This statement

addresses the act of gaining knowledge and the

growth of knowledge in the process of learning,

which often has been analysed in terms of concept

development. Concepts are to be understood as basic

units of knowledge that can be accumulated, refined

and combined to form richer cognitive structures

(Lewin, 1942). The learner is seen as a person who

constructs meaning and knowledge. Reference

(Sfard, 1998, 5) describes: “the language of

knowledge acquisition and concept development

makes us think about the human mind as a container

to be filled with certain materials and about the

learner as becoming an owner of this material.” The

acquisition metaphor, in terms of action, is seen as

“transformation, reception, acquisition, construction,

attainment, development, accumulation and grasp

and the teacher should help the student to attain the

appropriate goal by e.g., delivering, facilitating and

conveying” (Sfard, 1998, 5). In this study, the

acquisition metaphor represents a traditional view of

learning in which an individual acquires abstract and

generalizable knowledge by following pre-given and

clear-cut rules or algorithms (Engeström, 1987;

Schaefer, 1967).

The participation metaphor of learning should be

viewed as a person interested in a certain kind of

activity rather than in accumulating private property

or possessions. Here, learning is conceived of as a

process of becoming a member of a community,

communicating in the language of that community,

and acting according to its norms. The norms

themselves are to be negotiated in the process of

consolidating the community. While the learners are

newcomers and reformers of practice, the teachers

are preservers of the community. From the lone

entrepreneur, the learners are an integral part of a

group. Participation is almost synonymous with

“taking part” and “being a part”, and “both of these

expressions signify that learning should be viewed

as a process of becoming a part of a greater whole”

(Sfard, 1998, 6). In the “integrative model”, this

perspective is involved with participation to the

research consortiums, regional R&D configuration,

policy development, and strategies in higher

education institution (Pirinen, 2015).

Reference (Bereiter, 2007) places a knowledge-

creation representation that addresses the processes

of deliberate transformation of knowledge and

corresponding social practices: here, the knowledge-

creation metaphor of learning can be understood in

way that learning is seen as analogous to “processes

of inquiry, especially to innovative processes of

inquiry where something new is created and the

initial knowledge is either substantially enriched or

significantly transformed during the process.”

In this study, the knowledge creation or as its

extended form knowledge co-creation approach of

learning is expected to provide a way of integration

of lines between problem-based, solution-based,

acquisition-based, and participation-based

approaches (Burr, 1995; Eraut, 1994; Gibbons, et al.,

2008; Bereiter, 2007; Porter, 1990; Simon, 1996).

3 METHODOLOGY

In the operative environment of this study, the

knowledge sources, knowledge transfers, triggers

and enablers for co-creation were investigated in the

viewpoints of research consortia, higher education

institution, regional innovation system, and

participated actors and students. The analysed

processes in higher education were externally

funded R&D projects related learning and co-

creation processes, such as realization of Learning

by R&D functions by solution-focused nexus. The

empirical part of study was conducted on how

knowledge was transferred and how co-creation

exists between Learning by R&D processes and

authentic cases of externally funded R&D projects

which includes strong ties to the consortium’s and

regional-national research agenda.

A qualitative multiple case studies were selected

as the research approach. The study consists as a

continuum of research interventions: the knowledge

transfers in the externally funded R&D projects as

single cases (n=8). The Learning by R&D processes

in the higher education study units as single cases

(n=18); and finally cross case conclusion of “mutual

knowledge transfers” and “co-creative and

continuum-focused R&D approach”. This multiple

case study analysis addresses the investigation of

R&D-related higher education and learning

realizations along with a regional-national-

international research integration and included five

(n=7) EU-EC funded R&D projects as cases in the

domain of a higher education institution.

In this study, the multiple-case study approach

was used; the method is well explained in reference

sources that address “the case research strategy in

studies of information systems” (Benbasat, et al.,

1987); “building theories from case study research”

(Eisenhardt, 1989); “case studies and theory

development in the social sciences and qualitative

data analysis” (Miles and Huberman, 1994); “real

world research” (Robson, 2001); and “case study

research design and methods” (Yin, 2009).

In this study, data on externally funded R&D

were investigated and results concluded in the

viewpoints of realization of R&D related activities

and international-local knowledge transfers and

mobilization theme. The brief description of

included R&D projects as continuum of cases is

described in the following Table 1. The data

collection of this study was cumulative and

systematically used for this qualitative analysis

between January 2008 and April 2017.

Table 1: The investigated externally funded R&D projects.

R&D Project

Funding

RIESCA

SF-TEKES-SEC 2007-2013

MOBI

SF-TEKES-SEC 2007-2013

PERSEUS

EC-FP7-SECURITY-261748

AIRBEAM

EC-FP7-SECURITY-261769

ABC4EU

EC-FP7-SECURITY-312797

EU_CISE_2020

EC-FP7-SECURITY-608385

MARISA

EC-H2020-740698

#WINLandFI

SF-ACADEMY-SRC-303623

4 CONCLUSIONS

The study indicate that the characteristics and

dissemination efforts by the research consortiums

have a strong influence on knowledge transfer and

co-creation processes and realization of R&D related

learning in higher education institution, which draws

collaborative links, knowledge transfers,

competence improvements and shared mutual

confidence and trust between participators. Strong

ties within stakeholders and users, working life and

higher education makes a difference to continuums

and knowledge transfer functions, but for high-value

impacts, working life, authorities, government

relations and users participation have to be fostered

and mutual confidence and trust over silos achieved

in first stage in building phase of user-stakeholder

community.

Study revealed that strong involvement of the

larger user-stakeholder community, such as

knowledge and data fusion community is needed to

capture the relevant operational needs and validate

the results in investigated R&D projects.

Especially, the EU funding related research

consortiums relies on the large scale user-

stakeholder community (national-global expertise

community) that will include “end user

practitioners”, partners, associates, field expert,

government actors, and authorities to explore and

exploit the human capital in Member States and their

institutions identifying operational needs, steering,

scenario analysis, proactive issues, existing gaps,

relevant requirements and adoptions, acceptability

subjects and societal impacts that the dissemination

solutions entails.

The typical design of expertise community

integrates the end users’ experience and design-

development related R&D, trust building and co-

creativity in the collective-authentic manner. The

user-stakeholder community can also provide

guidance to the partners and enable interactions in

the consortium for the implementation of the new

technologies and “legitimate peripheral participation

(Lave and Wenger, 2009)” to EU research nexus and

produce high-value dissemination impacts.

4.1 Knowledge Sources

The followed proposal of knowledge sources as a

sample of learning within knowledge fusion expands

the emergent middle range theory of knowledge

sources and transfers (Pirinen, 2015) including:

metaphors of learning (Sfard, 1998); knowledge

building metaphor (Scardamalia and Bereiter, 2006);

learning by expanding (Engeström, 1987); situated

cognition and cultural dependency (Brown, et al.,

1989); and situational learning, legitimate peripheral

participation (Lave and Wenger, 2009).

The study revealed that “research-learning

scopes”, “triggers and purposes”, “research agenda”,

and Learning by R&D settings can address to the

knowledge sources and increase knowledge

transfers, such as comprised to Table 2.

Table 2: Knowledge Sources.

Knowledge Sources (metaphors)

Knowledge transition and sharing: such as shared or

diffused knowledge, especially in the initiation

phase of research-learning activity in consortium.

Knowledge transformation metaphor: such as

knowledge from legacy service-systems or cultures,

especially in phase when the learning-scope is

selected for studies.

Inquired knowledge: such as knowledge from

domain or field; traditional metaphor of acquisition

related knowledge gathering in R&D projects; exists

in linear research parts of consortia knowledge

processes.

Focused knowledge or led knowledge: such as

regional R&D agenda or research consortium

connected knowledge which can be adopted for

radical innovations, e.g., often described in an

excellence part of FP and H2020 proposal.

Knowledge co-creation and knowledge building:

such as improving knowledge collectively upon

experience, quality aspects, action data and action

related competence.

Artifact and service related embedded-implicit

knowledge: e.g., knowledge inside a service-system

which can only be observed, or such as knowledge

of decision trees that can be implemented

artificially.

Knowledge by disruptive change: such as

knowledge of disruptive innovations that creates a

new market and related high-value network and

eventually disrupts an existing market and related

value network.

Knowledge by adaptive changes and resilience

needs on-demand. Such resilience aspects as: to plan

and prepare; absorb disturbance; recover from; and

adapt to known or unknown threats.

4.2 Knowledge Achievements

It is noteworthy that knowledge achieving has to

include a systematic and rigorous research, such as

knowledge inquiries for validation of service,

systems or standards. In this study, then knowledge

achieving addressed to the analytic investigations

and collaboration between networked research units.

Then, the knowledge achievements can be described

as “universal”, e.g., results of case studies or design

research studies in investigated R&D projects.

In investigated R&D projects, the typical

outcomes of inquiry based knowledge were such as:

descriptions of phenomenon or problem; specified

requirements; reasoning for development; logic or

models which explain phenomenon; descriptions of

interest; and communal aspiration-volition. The

main research questions were such as: how can

“some phenomenon” be understood, modelled and

realized in the operative domain.

The study revealed that achieved type of

knowledge in international research setting can be

further improved, modularised, transformed and

utilised. The shared knowledge by research

consortium can increase strengths to the related

R&D projects and studies, work designs, and

understanding of appropriate research gaps. The

knowledge achievements were further aligned with

realisations of study units, integration of word

packages and facilitation of metrics in R&D

projects. The main knowledge achieving elements

and factors are described in Table 3.

Table 3: Knowledge Achievements.

Knowledge Achievements (elements)

Led & focused knowledge sources (knowledge

sources for learning scopes).

Research consortium related knowledge (body of

knowledge).

Relevant requirements and needs, advices and

guidance by expertise (knowledge for reasoning).

Knowledge for creativity and communal aspiration

(knowledge for spirit and participation).

Knowledge of steering forums (knowledge as

leadership and management driver).

Knowledge related to research agenda (knowledge-

based steering driver).

Inquiries of needed new knowledge (covering of

knowledge gaps).

Shared or diffused knowledge by value network

(knowledge implications).

Ethical and legalisation related knowledge

(knowledge for a collective policy implementation

and development).

Analytical and science based knowledge, such as

scenario analytics (rigorous).

4.3 Knowledge Transfers

It is remarkable that experiential knowledge

transfers do not necessarily follow a fixed order or

direction, and do not definitely complete all of the

described and understood knowledge aspects in but

rather knowledge transfers are in mutual interaction

and all knowledge transfers include some type of

learning and competence.

It can be comprised that study revealed six

processes or aspects of knowledge transfers

between: knowledge building (creation & co-

creation); knowledge transformation (e.g. legacy

alignments); knowledge achieving (e.g., inquiring,

sharing and participation); and knowledge

dissemination as described in Table 4.

Table 4: Knowledge Transfers.

Knowledge Transfers (aspects | process)

Process from knowledge building to knowledge

achieving: knowledge transfers from knowledge

building (creation and co-creation) which represents

as entity of thinking, ideas, aspiration and

motivation to knowledge achieving which represents

rigorous research and knowledge transfers which

was needed for planning, designing, building,

improving or testing something.

Process form knowledge achieving to knowledge

sharing: knowledge transfers from knowledge

achieving, such as research agenda or knowledge of

outcomes of rigorous research to the knowledge

sharing and dissemination such as proofing of

relevant outcomes in terms of competence and

knowledge, which were related to dissemination of

services, artifacts and capabilities.

Process from knowledge validation to knowledge

activation: knowledge transfers from knowledge

validation into vary knowledge approaches; the

high-value impacts of these knowledge transfers,

such as new knowledge can be proved in

dissemination which includes both aspects rigor and

relevant.

Process from knowledge which is related into

thinking of constructs for domain ontology

development: the ontological view of the knowledge

transfers takes place in the meanings of new or

changed “terms” in an evolution of legacy services

or artifacts, which changes the terminology and

domain ontology; “new terms” are first thought,

internalized, and developed inside knowledge

building process.

Then, these “revised terms” are externalized to the

collective meaning and purpose, and then expanded

to the “terms” and “definitions” into more rigorous

environment of research, and in the end to the

“terms” which are assimilated in the context by

disseminated service or artifact and finally these

domain ontological knowledge achievements

“terms” are transferred to the body of appropriate

knowledge reserves.

Lastly, dissemination of terms: in the next loop, the

meanings of “terms” in a new service, which were

first developed by individual’s mental intra-level,

are then disseminated to the regional domain, and

then extended to the national level, and in the end to

the international level. With these ontological

knowledge transfers, the meaning of a “new born

term”, such as “co-creation” and “resilience” what it

means in this newly developed service as a view of

ontology. The “new term” as “proposal of term” is

extended, externalized, and synthetized from the

individual understanding level to the dissemination,

and in the end, to the global level and probably

accepted to the global body of knowledge.

One additional finding of this study is that the value

related knowledge structures would be concentrated

as in manners of knowledge fusion to maximize a

possible resilience for an adaptive progress and

capabilities. Then as statement of study, value of

new knowledge, such as intellectual knowledge,

value of competitiveness related knowledge, and

business related knowledge can be collocated in

integrative and knowledge data fusion related

models and R&D collaboration.

4.4 Knowledge Transformations

In this context, the knowledge transformations were

especially enabled in the design research studies in

improvements and rebuilding of legacy information

systems, such as: new or revised requirements;

reviewed definitions; revised or new action logic;

more rigorous metric for future using; and

implications for needed improvisations. In the

continuum of this study, reasoning to knowledge

transformation was studied and recognized by action

research or case studies for design and development

purposes. The description of knowledge

transformations are contained to the followed Table

Table 5: Knowledge Transformations.

Knowledge Transformations (aspects)

Transformation of knowledge which was related to

the life cycles, such as legacy systems.

Transformation of knowledge related to design and

development path-dependency.

Transformation of knowledge related to system

context-dependency.

Transformation of knowledge related to

organization-institution-dependency.

Transformation of knowledge related to cultural-

dependency.

Transformation of knowledge related to adaptive

systems and resilience needs.

4.5 Knowledge Co-creation

Co-created knowledge or knowledge creation

process, such as building of new knowledge was

related to building of new artifact, service or

expanded ontology in such forms as meanings of

signs, symbols and constructs. The focus was on

inductive approach of creation or co-creation

processes, and outcomes included strong

consortium-dependency, cultural-dependency,

government-helix-dependency and work place

dependency.

The knowledge co-creations were achieved by

service design and information systems design

research with multimethodological studies in R&D

projects. In our co-creation settings, learning was

related to processes of inquiry, especially to

innovative processes of inquiry where something

new was created and the initial knowledge was

substantially enriched or significantly transformed

during the process.

The knowledge creation or as its extended form

knowledge co-creation metaphor of learning was

expected to provide a way of integration of lines

between problem-based, scope-based, solution-

based, acquisition-based, and participation-based

learning approaches.

The typical outcome of knowledge creation or

co-creation approach was such as: new proposal for

next externally funded project or pilot;

understanding of potential solution; co-creation of

new scopes; new model; description of novelty and

feasibility; description of aspiration or interest; and

issues to steering and shared volition. Knowledge

relation to high-value impacts as dissemination

effort elements in our R&D projects included such

communication related understanding as described

in the followed Table 6.

Table 6: Co-creation Impacts by Dissemination.

Co-creation and Dissemination (impacts)

Dissemination and co-creation are functions of

networked body of shared knowledge.

Dissemination proofs usefulness of achieved

knowledge which is co-created.

Dissemination validates methodology for

distribution of co-created artifacts and services.

Dissemination proofs co-created realizations.

Dissemination is realized by demonstrations, models

and methods (samples of co-creation).

Dissemination meant co-validation of distribution.

Dissemination addressed to focused universities and

schools (co-creative peripheral participation).

Dissemination included conferences and journal

articles as deliverables to the body of knowledge.

Dissemination was addressed on the way to

harmonization (last-mile research).

Dissemination was towards understanding and

confirmation that how to design, build and evaluate

artifacts and services.

The dissemination function includes R&D focused

knowledge or thematic knowledge for future, e.g.,

probable new led knowledge for future continuum of

studies, which can be, joined to the improvements of

regional-international research agenda or future

targets of research consortium and R&D projects. In

addition, the dissemination and co-creative scopes

were context-depended and thematic, they was

achieved by studies and addressed by how and why

questions and by design research interventions in

R&D projects.

Then, last remark of study: an implication is that

dissemination metrics should be addressed to

successful realisation of artifact or service and high-

value impacts in scales of direct- and indirect

impacts; the R&D interventions have to include both

rigor and relevant dimensions for generation of high-

value impacts.

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