How to Develop a Sustainable Innovation Ecosystem? Example of ZalaZONE

The purpose of the paper is to analyse the typical research trends along the current challenges of the social, environmental and business aspects of sustainability and discuss the issues of geographically concentrated, park-like innovation ecosystems. At ZalaZONE Park as a consciously built innovation ecosystem, sustainability aspects are organically integrated into its development and into the operation approach, giving the empiric case for the research question. The ZalaZONE Energy Ecosystem Program connects the subject of sustainability with the innovation ecosystem on system level through innovative technologies and future-oriented environmental initiatives in various energy projects. In connection with this, it is also investigated is how new technologies support and ensure the long-term sustainability of the innovation ecosystem, and how the features of this relationship can be interpreted. Since ZalaZONE Park shows the characteristics of complex systems, the overall framework of the analysis is provided by the ecosystem model previously developed by the authors and further developed in the present analysis. Such a model contributes to each development step of the innovation ecosystem for sake of balanced and sustainability-oriented growth. Finally, an aggregated system model was presented including aspects of sustainability, with particular regard to the characteristics of complex systems.