BUS604: Innovation and Sustainability

The majority of the spaces featured in this study fall under more than one impact category. The most common impact category represented in this study is entrepreneurial communities building, followed by business acceleration and urban regeneration, with industry innovation the smallest impact category. This does not imply that the smaller represented impact categories are less common, but most likely that their impact is only starting to emerge now.

This study features spaces that differ in their scope: general and thematic, with a slightly higher number of general spaces in the sample. The general spaces have more impact on entrepreneurial communities building and urban regeneration, while the thematic spaces contribute to business acceleration and industry innovation. In the majority of the cases, the featured creative spaces that contribute to urban regeneration also contribute to entrepreneurial communities building; only in a quarter of the cases do the spaces that contribute to industry innovation also have an impact on entrepreneurial communities.

We analyze the CCS financial models from a twofold perspective: 

1. fixed funding, and 
2. variable revenue. 

These two different types of funding have implications on the operational models of the spaces. Fixed funding serves as base funding to cover fixed costs, while variable revenue serves to conduct additional activities and other variable costs. 

From the fixed funding perspective, the spaces featured in this study used three forms of funding: 

1. private ownership, 
2. private donations, and 
3. subsidies; 

with two types of funding models: pure (only one source of funding used) and hybrid (more than one source of funding used). Pure funding models are being used slightly more often than hybrid. Analysis of the forms of funding shows that subsidies are the most frequently used form of funding, followed by private ownership. The spaces that contribute to entrepreneurial communities building are partly or completely privately owned, while the spaces that have an impact on business acceleration are often subsidized. We observe that all spaces that have attracted private donations fall under the business acceleration impact category.

From the variable revenue, the featured spaces use pure and hybrid revenue models. The pure subscription model is the most common among thematic spaces; hybrid models are more common among general spaces. The subscription revenue model is the most common among the spaces featured in this study, while the consulting, rental/events, and acceleration revenue models are usually used to complement the subscription model and are less common. Consulting and rental/events revenue models are used only by general spaces with a strong entrepreneurial communities building impact - that is, the spaces that are more mature and have well-established networks. Spaces funded solely through subsidies more often use the pure subscription revenue model, while spaces that are privately owned tend to use a hybrid model - a mix of subscription, consulting, and rental/events revenue models.

The CCSs presented seven different types of interactive environments for their communities: 

1. coworking space 
2. accelerator 
3. maker space 
4. community space 
5. incubator 
6. fab lab 
7. hackerspace (see the glossary for definitions of these terms). 

Typically, these interactive environments are not mutually exclusive. The most common type of interactive environment among the featured spaces is coworking space, followed by community space, incubator, maker space, accelerator, and fab lab; the rarest type presented in this study is hackerspace. Spaces that consider themselves a hackerspace identify with a community space and a maker space more often than with other types of spaces. In the group of featured CCSs, the number of incubator spaces is higher than that of accelerators, highlighting that more flexible business development programs are more common among the creative spaces featured in this study. While maker spaces, community spaces, accelerators, and incubators are equally common types of spaces among general and thematic spaces, coworking spaces, fab labs, and hackerspaces are more common among thematic spaces featured in the study. The featured CCSs that identify themselves as community spaces contribute to urban regeneration and entrepreneurial communities building, as do the majority of hackerspaces. All accelerators analyzed in this study are privately owned, and half of them receive private donations as part of their funding; a funding model based on "pure" subsidies is only used for incubators and fab labs. Hybrid revenue models are more typical for places marked as accelerators and incubators.

Creative spaces are able to contribute to their sustainability through the range of services they provide, which also serve as additional networking assets for their ecosystems. In all cases, the listed services are complementary; however, the priority and combinations of the services used vary.