A tale of two innovation cultures: Bridging the gap between makers and manufacturers

Maker communities have been widely popularized during the last decade throughout the development of numerous shared spaces in the form of makerspaces, fab labs and hackerspaces across the globe. This phenomenon has drawn the attention of many stakeholders interested in establishing bridges with them for exploring their innovation potential. However, synergies between producer innovation and free innovation paradigms remain quite uncertain. To meet this gap, the authors provide an analysis of the 22 collaborative innovations between makers and manufacturers funded by the OPENMAKER project as well as relevant empirical evidence gathered throughout 126 semi-structured interviews. The findings of this contribution stress the misalignment of makers and manufacturers in society as well as their different values and motivations around innovation, and the lack of shared spaces. At the same time, the paper highlights the benefits that the interaction between these two communities could have for meeting societal challenges, increasing social welfare and speeding up innovation processes if proper incentives and conditions are orchestrated. In this sense, we propose a set of considerations and implications based on the empirical material gathered, for providing future directions for innovation policies and research agendas.