“Europe’s industry is the motor of growth and prosperity in Europe.

And it is at its best when it draws on what makes it strong:

its people and their ideas, talents, diversity and entrepreneurial spirit”.Footnote 1

Ursula von der Leyen.

The “Social MuskEUteer”, a “heroic, chivalrous intrepid humankind”,Footnote 2

on an equal footing within the triple transition.

1 Introduction

The post-COVID scenario and the new geopolitical confrontation are bringing Europe and the world into a new political era (Alashhab et al. 2021). The European Union (EU) is triggering ambitious initiatives encompassing the three pillars of sustainabilityFootnote 3 such as the European Pillar of Social Rights,Footnote 4 the Green Deal,Footnote 5 the EU Digital Strategy,Footnote 6 or the EU’s new industrial policy.Footnote 7 This is accompanied by quick socio-technical developmentsFootnote 8 setting a new framework that contains opportunities and uncertainties. Strong emphasis has been placed on the need to assign funds to the green and digital transition. Nevertheless, little attention has been paid to co-evolution and interweaving with the social elements that should be placed at the forefront,Footnote 9 not only tailored for the EU countries, but for Europe as a wholeFootnote 10 and the world. Society is at the beginning, throughout, and at the end of all processes.

The recently adopted Next Generation EU Recovery Plan which, together with the multiannual financial framework 2021–2027, represents “the largest stimulus package ever” is placing our continent in a unique position to boost the triple transition. This chapter aims to put in motion a new conceptualisation for a triple transition in Europe and beyondFootnote 11: a more holistic and transformative vision on the imperative need to boost a more human-cultural-centred and planet-friendly not twin but triple transition.

Placing social innovation at the centre, as the axis and essential pillar for the generation of positive ecological and digital impacts, is the guide for a positive green and digital transition. This means an extended concept of social innovation, intersectional social innovation, socio-cultural innovation, or diverse social innovation, which takes into account the different contexts and cultural dimensions. This enriched concept will go beyond an open innovation system where everybody collaborates towards an innovation system that is open, resilient, and diverse and whose main “food” is difference. It is diversity that will bring alternative solutions, accommodating rhythms and different outcomes, resulting in higher possibilities to produce positive impacts adapted at each context and need.

As G. Thunberg said: “We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed. Everything needs to change—and it has to start today”. Therefore, to get different results, we must take a different approach!Footnote 12

This chapter proposes moving towards more human-centred, planet-friendly sustainable and digitally mediated, inclusive, and long-term results in line with (a) the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals; (b) the agreed agendas and political objectives at the local and regional communities, and/or national, European, and international contexts; and (c) through the active engagement, commitment, and interrelation of multi-stakeholder and agents. All result in more integrated innovation ecosystems for the common good, envisioning European society as a transformational “co-laboratory”.

A “co-laboratory” is a neologism to express the new emerging innovation ecosystems including people, natural ecosystems, and machines, working together to find innovative solutions to our common challenges. The European Union as the Lab is a vision that already has appeared in EU papersFootnote 13 and initiatives.Footnote 14

COVID-19 has already demonstrated the profound lack of resilience that societies around the world have shown when confronted by a sudden systemic shock. Most observers predict the continuation of such shocks, whether in the form of further pandemics, crossing environmental tipping points, geopolitical balances and understandings and trade tensions (like the lack of semiconductors or the global supply chain chaos), or growing economic fragility and societal division.Footnote 15

Nevertheless, it is just in such existential times when people from all over the world are starting to collaborate to find new solutions, new social innovations, new technologies, and a more sustainable relationship with our natural environments. The OECD has already highlighted in a recent report “the importance of knowledge co-creation—the joint production of innovation between industry, research and possibly other stakeholders, such as civil society”, especially evident during the COVID pandemic, showing a great variety of forms and shapes of this co-creation processes.Footnote 16

The planet, our societies, our natural ecosystems, and our digital systems are becoming open laboratories, potentially universal research and innovation ecosystems for this triple transition: social, green, and digital.

The chapter is organised into three sections: the first one, titled “Three Challenges in a New Paradigm”, presents the rationale of the NEED for an encompassing “boundaryless” triple transition, the WHY. The second one presents the notion of the European Union as the co-laboratory for this triple transition: the HOW BEST to bring about the needed transformations. And a third section that integrates the key messages to call for new policy actions able to push and pursue the “one for all, all for one”: The HOW to turn the forward-looking vision into a call for new policy actions.

2 Three Challenges in a New Paradigm

The “all for one, one for all” motto of Alexandre Dumas’ three Musketeers perfectly fits with the imperative for an encompassing, boundarylessFootnote 17 shared vision of this triple transition in Europe: an attuned indivisible green,Footnote 18 digital,Footnote 19 and socialFootnote 20 agenda. This triple transition can accelerate the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals and the urgent need to speed up the readiness for responding to sudden shocks (e.g. COVID crisis, armed conflicts, and human displacements).

The question is: can we support a twin transition towards climate neutrality and digital transformation without an inclusive, responsive, and responsible social transition? Without acknowledging that people are always behind the invention and implementation of technologies? The social dimension is not only a matter of assistance; it is something bigger. It includes how the whole society is re-organised and engaged to face our existential challenges. COVID has shown that, in addition to a green and digital transition, our societies urgently need deeper social transformation,Footnote 21 starting by the renewal of our healthcare systems and followed by our educational and labour systems. We need globally new healthcare systems, more preventive and transparent, co-created with citizens and researchers, companies, and public bodies collaborating with a more humble, responsible, and open attitude. We need more coordinated health and well-being “knowledge co-creation” communities.

Not only due to the 2019–2020 crisis, but with preceding social and economic ones, natural disasters, armed conflicts, human displacements, etc., our societies are constantly subjected to unprecedented challenges and this has demonstrated the need for profound reflection and a reset. As a society, we need to reflect and act in a responsive, proactive way in regard to what needs to be changed in this world. Now, more than ever, humanity needs to respond collectivelyFootnote 22 and holistically to the most urgent, most unavoidable transformations of our timeFootnote 23: green transition, which includes:

  • Creating mitigation and adaptation strategies for climate change, circular economy, restoring biodiversity and cutting pollution, etc.

  • Fostering digital change and social change by mainstreaming technology to avoid turning the digital divide into a digital social chasm in different fields (like health and well-being, ageing, and overpopulationFootnote 24).

  • Tackling social justice, growing inequalities, and the stigma of aporophobia and defining a strategy to cope with the necessity of fair migration as developed countries absolutely need younger people, etc.

  • Developing the social structures, such as collaboratories, to coordinate all together for the same mission.

But why this urgency? Because the PRIMARY PURPOSE of humanity on the planet (i.e. the socio-technical-economical-environmental system) is to sustain life—it is being disturbed and less likely achievable. Once a system’s reason for being is endangered, all other sub-outcomes become secondary.

Change needs to come not only from outside but also from inside: “If not now, when? If not us, who?”.Footnote 25

It is clear that we are not moving in the right direction or at the right pace, as emphasised by the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report,Footnote 26 which urges “…immediate and more ambitious action to address climate risks. Half measures are no longer an option”. There is a growing gap and imbalance between developed regions with wealthier citizens and those who do not possess much, the different rhythms of societal and techno-digital transformations, harm to the planet, etc. The EU social market economy, which is unique in the world, must work for all: people who need to invest in their skills, re- or upskilling, child guarantee and protection, employers’ investments, etc., and, of course, to acquire digital, creative, and innovative skills and sensibility for the future of humanity and the territories where we live. The EU is turning principles into actions through ambitious, achievable targets.

Global poverty is one of the very worst problems that the world faces today. The poorest in the world are often hungry, have much less access to education, regularly have no light at night, and suffer from much poorer health. To make progress against poverty is therefore one of the most urgent global goals.Footnote 27 Since early 2020, we have seen dramatic increases in poverty and inequalityFootnote 28 around the world and the erosion of trust and increase of anxiety and stress,Footnote 29 and also a polarisation of people opened and closed to socio-digital transformation.Footnote 30 However, we have also witnessed a heightened realisation that society relies on so-called essential workers across health, service, delivery, and manufacturing sectors, who are, at the same time, precisely those in insecure and low-paid jobs with poor and sometimes dangerous working conditions.Footnote 31 In this context, a prime lesson is that we need to rethink what is meant by sustainability towards an approach where long-term resilience becomes a key pillar that provides a counterweight against the short-term “efficiency” mind-set that dominates most current economic and social systems and that brought us to where we are today.Footnote 32

In addition to a narrow economic perspective, resilience also needs to be seen in social and environmental terms and increase the introduction of diversity and interconnectivity from the initial set-up and each step along the way of each endeavour. Diversity in its multiple forms (cultural, gender, generation, etc.) provides greater social and economic slack, more sources of innovation with bottom-up, open, and socio-cultural-contextual innovation becoming mainstream, with additional alternative value chains if one fails, and multiple experimental and cultural environments (e.g. living labs, collaboratories). This is the opposite of just-in-time and “lean” systems that squeeze assets (including people) to breaking point and are chief drivers of the current situation. The more the flow through a system is made “efficient” by streamlining and simplification, the more brittle it becomes. The key question is: how can we pursue intersectional resilience that unleashes the creative potential of humanity?

Sitting alongside diversity, interconnectivity, through for example, digital technologies that support tele and inter-working, communication, trust, and collaboration, increases the number of system nodes and connections into ecosystems, and thereby overall resilience. Even strong shocks to a diverse and interconnected n-helix ecosystems can be much better absorbed through the rerouting and repair of conventional innovation ecosystems flows.Footnote 33

Against this background, the UN 2030 Agenda offers a collective framework for driving the needed changes in a consistent, coherent, mutually reinforcing way. Its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a “common language” that governments at all levels and organisations of all kinds (private sector, NGOs, academia) can use to seek alliances (starting from a common set of specific targets in a wide range of areas: from social justice to climate action, from gender equality to quality education, from ecosystem protection to health and well-being) and find the best ways to bring forward a transformative new paradigm leaving no one behind.Footnote 34,Footnote 35 The Global Agenda, approved in 2015 and covering 15 years, has now entered what UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called “the decade of action”, for which the strategy and (supposedly) the expected outcomes are set, though there is as yet little or no sign of the tactics needed.

That means especially tactics which address the radical shifts needed from siloed to collaborative, from narrow perspectives to big-picture, and from one-time action to purposeful, purposive collective co-creation. The world needs to deliver, and the pandemic—with all its dramatic consequences—can also be seen as an opportunity to build back better.

The COVID-19 crisis has hugely accelerated an already incipient refocus back to more domestic economic systems through new forms of “re-shoring” and re-localisation also down to regional and city levels, the great resignation effect, also known as the Big Quit,Footnote 36 and the internal migration outside of cities due to teleworking.Footnote 37 Policies at the local, municipality, and city levels often have the most impact, as they are closest to citizens and most businesses. This so-called new localism aims to empower local stakeholders and retain as much of the value as possible created by a given community for their own use and further investment, rather than seeing this value seep away to a multinational with no local commitment and often to a tax haven. There are, for example, many social innovations, experimenting with and developing circular cities and local jobs, local currencies and tokens, blockchain as an emerging and promising approach in managing decentralised local energy markets (LEM) (Strepparava et al., 2022), basic income schemes,Footnote 38 and employee-owned enterprises.Footnote 39 This does not mean that local areas should become “independent” or isolated from the outside world, but that they are given every incentive and opportunity to self-help in addition to any needed external help because of poverty and vulnerability.

Policymakers should also ensure that such efforts are not wasted, degraded, or captured by free-riders,Footnote 40 whether operating in the market or other contexts. Also important for the new localism are local research, engagement and evaluation, good governance, and management, to ensure efficiency, accountability, and beneficial regional development (Millard, 2020, 2021).

3 The European Union as the Co-laboratory for the Triple Transition

The EU’s role as a trend-setter at global level must not be underestimated: the new president of the USA is setting up a new social policy agenda, seeking to emulate European policies. This is a great historical opportunity for the EU to become the “co-laboratory” for the main transitions that the world is expected to face simultaneously in this decade: the green, digital, and social transitions. The concept of “Climate Transition Superlabs” has already appeared in recent Horizon Europe calls.Footnote 41 Similar to “living labs” but operating on a much larger scale, they spur the transformation of whole entities—such as non-sustainable business complexes, mining regions, and polluted metropolitan areas—in an economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable manner.

Becoming the first universal innovation ecosystem (Serra, 2018),Footnote 42 a continent of 27 countries with 448 millions of citizens means opening up our innovation ecosystems to everyone, engaging every citizen and stakeholders in the challenges we all are facing, setting up strategies and expectations on “what” we want or need to achieve, and also focusing on the “how”, the new ways, the new mechanisms we need to achieve such goals.

These three transitions are interdependent: we cannot solve climate change without digital innovations and a profound social and behavioural approach. By the same token, the digital transition needs a new energy model and the democratisation and adoption of technological transformation for all if it is to avoid negative impacts.Footnote 43 Finally, a social Europe that is fair, inclusive, creative, innovative, open, collaborative, and full of opportunities needs input from green and digital innovation with initiatives such as the EU Health Union or the New Jobs strategy.

All for one, one for all.

We definitely need to lay down the foundations for developing a more open and inclusive innovation ecosystem removing the numerous literal and figurative political, social, cultural, spatial, temporal, disciplinary, paradigmatic, and other boundaries that currently exist in addressing the complex challenges of our time.

We must determine what needs to be achieved by co-evolution as the ultimate goal for growing together (EU, candidate countries, and global scale) to align with the motto “one for all, all for one” and make the three transitions work together consistently.

In addition to the green and digital transitions, humanity urgently needs a social transition. Without it, citizens from all over the world will not be interested in saving the planet or believing in digital transformations, if their daily life gets steadily worse. The EU is the political project that can offer to the world such a joint narrative, encompassing a sustainable planet, a visionary digital future, and a humane and sustainable society, all together. The EU finally can become a first prototype of the Lab, our real and possible new glocal order.

4 Key Messages to Push and Pursue the “One for All, All for One” Forward-Looking Vision into a Call for New EU Policy Actions

This chapter summons for new EU policy actions that secure a truly JUST triple transition, which involves and commits individuals, citizenry, organisations, public and private bodies, companies, and the EU to take action on the “how” in addition to the “what” and “why” need to be done and achieved. The following main elements would be a clear indication of the roadmap ahead:

  1. 1.

    Stressing the official recognition that a third social transitionFootnote 44 needs to be reinforced as an EU political priority to strengthen the other two compelling but more widely accepted ones: the green and digital transitions.

    The Porto Social Summit of the European Council was a good change to recognise and set in motion the European Pillar of Social Rights (European Union 2017), placing its principles and values at the core. This has become a golden window of opportunity to build a shared vision of the future able to inform short-, medium-, and long-term decision-making processes.

    There is a perceived excess of environmental, political, economic, and social posturing while failing to face the real problems; the wealth distribution; the policy, sectoral, geographical, and other divides; and the temporary and eligibility mismatching between supposedly synergetic initiatives. We all need to make a radical change in our habits.Footnote 45

    Throughout the life cycle of any policy, programme, industrial initiative, or service, from its inception to the final co-delivery, all involved actors should embrace the social axis with the firm engagement of citizens and end users. Whoever co-creates should also have a stake and a responsibility in ensuring that what was co-created is maintained and sustained over time, opening up further possibilities of generating worthwhile value-based preventive and anticipation actions.

    The participation of everyone in governance is essentially democracy, but when it comes to the complex challenges of our time (e.g. environmental issues), the digital transitions must be accompanied by the exercise of individual responsibility by every single citizen regardless of his/her/their role, age, or position. Each of us has impacts on the environment through our everyday actions and we are not willing to make “sacrifices”: having a waste, water, or air treatment facility next to our homes, or lowering our levels, habits, and forms of consumption. Rather than take a NIMBY (not-in-my-back-yard) stance we should adopt a YIMBY (yes-in-my-back-yard) mind-set and thereby share responsibilities and take ownership of our life-support systems.

    We would thus be able to establish a caring, preventive attitude and avoid continuously having to react to harmful impacts through damage control and costly recovery plans.

  2. 2.

    Courageous mission-oriented research and innovation projects and the adoption of the new (yet ancient) principle of collaborative innovation should be the basic driver of the new EU policies. Thus, individual, institutional, sectoral, geographical, and other interests should be aligned for the common good. All the initiatives and actions should be really based on respecting the “do no significant harm” principle. “Not leaving anyone behind” and “promoting everyone ahead” should be our cohesion goals (Ayala et al. 2022).

  3. 3.

    The EU triple transition’s co-laboratory needs “a complex system mind-set” building up on dynamic, context-sensitive, and holistic approaches.Footnote 46 The EU emerging mission-oriented research and innovation is an appropriate framework to co-design mission and purpose-driven actions, outcomes, outputs, and no-harm inclusive sustainable impacts. Are we ready and willing to embrace open research, innovation, transfer of knowledge, and impact? How can resistance be overcome? How can stimulus be multiplicated? There is no planet B, there are many lives at stake (e.g. opening up vaccine patents to save lives), we need to assure the lifelong stability of the welfare system, well-being and quality of life, quality of education, and just employment for all.

  4. 4.

    Igniting the transformative capacity of all forms of collaboration (international, interdisciplinary, intersectoral, intergenerational) to allow interactions to emerge around purposes for the common good. Europe should be ready to build the first universal innovation ecosystem. If the universal access of the Internet is becoming a new human right in some countries,Footnote 47 the new horizon of the EU is the building of universal innovation ecosystems allowing every citizen the right of becoming part of this common enterprise.

    The active engagement of stakeholders from the n-helix innovation ecosystems is a must (Caro-Gonzalez et al., 2020).Footnote 48 How can we boost the negotiated, shared, co-evolved multi-cross-inter-transnational, disciplinary, sectoral, generational cooperation ecosystems? The MuskEUteers are all of us: each one of us committed to the change, with this triple, urgent, encompassing transition. Our dreams for a better world, our talents, our skills, capabilities, agency, motivation, ideas, and endeavours should be swirled into a meaningful creative vortex for positive impactful results. Every personFootnote 49 and every action matters!

    Active citizen responsive, responsible engagement is the base of these new mission-oriented innovation ecosystems. Without citizen engagement in collaborative innovation projects, no transition is possible. Alternative open, collaborative, co-creative, co-evolving innovative social initiatives have proven effective in reacting quickly to acute global socio-sanitary emergencies (e.g. the EUvsVirus Hackathon and MatchatonFootnote 50 co-organised with high-level policy commitment and massive multi-stakeholder collaborationFootnote 51,Footnote 52 further explained in Chapters “Academia Diffusion Experiment: Trailblazing the Emergence from Co-Creation” and “Multi-Vortex Tornado Blueprint for Disruptive Global Co-Creation (Inspired by EUvsVirus)” in the book). Furthermore, we need to bring together traditional top-down and bottom-up grassroots approaches involving middle-ground collaborative leadership models seeking sustainable and JUST solutions.

  5. 5.

    Grounding the social transition, like the green and digital transitions, on innovation in context,Footnote 53 focused on the main challenges of this social transition: health, education, jobs, poverty, transhumanism, culture of innovation.Footnote 54 And devising technologies, societies, and green deals that are able to respect, be implemented, and protected by the cultural diversity that characterises the EU. Promoting social technologies based on the diversity of engagements, backgrounds, cultures, profiles, stakeholders, and approaches,Footnote 55 to design, build, and activate social structures to support transformational processes.

    We need to set up an EU Task Force on Social Transition to gather and mainstream innovative answers to these challenges in existing and new initiatives: The European Health Union; the Renovation WaveFootnote 56; The European New Skills and New Jobs strategy; and more inclusive, more accessible education.Footnote 57

    To that end, the EU should definitively recognise intersectional social innovationFootnote 58 as the way in which social transition should be tackled. Since 2000 social innovation has been recognised by the OECDFootnote 59 as a way to find new solutions to the complex problems of our societies. Several European organisations (ESSI,Footnote 60 ENoLL,Footnote 61 etc.) have since promoted this new approach, putting citizens at the heart of this open, collaborative model of innovation.

    1. a.

      Working in local contexts with a global view, promoting a deeply intertwined global agenda.

      Grassroots initiatives based on responsive, responsible intergenerational participation can boost and channel citizens’ science and engagement to achieve Sustainable Development Goal targets. Local responses to global challenges aligned with the context of challenges identified by the given community can connect the local and global communities in joint capacity-building efforts, following the principle of “Think global, act local”.

    2. b.

      Used in conjunction with digital and technological solutions, social innovation creates complementarities and synergies between policy levels, fields, and sectors and programmes and initiatives, bridging the policy and territorial divides.

    3. c.

      Devising intermediate spaces and labs, as social innovation in social structures, in collaborations of a new kind, has the potential to lead processes of inclusion, co-creation, sustainable, JUST change, building socio-economic developments within context-driven ecosystems for the common good. Co-laboratories (“labs of labs”) working together at the European level for face-to-face and virtual exchange and co-creation are beginning to emerge connecting bottom-up living labs, fablabs, and social innovation labs with top-down labs at universities, public administrations, and companies to embrace this triple transition (see Collaboratories CatSudFootnote 62 and the European project VITALISEFootnote 63). Social innovators, entrepreneurs, and enablers (with proven moral principles working for the common good) will intervene as facilitators in order to improve the space for collaboration and the interactions of the multiple stakeholders.

  6. 6.

    Articulating these green, social, and techno-digital transitions as one (single), “one for all, all for one” continuous ambitious mission-driven research and innovation programme, setting up an EU Task Force including experts on the three transitions supported by the different funding mechanisms: Next Generation Europe, Horizon Europe, Digital Europe, Connecting Europe Facility, EU Structural Funds. This should translate into:

    1. a.

      Conferring a more crucial role to the social and solidarity economy with its key, complementary, and disruptive socio-economic alternatives and capability to bring about change.

    2. b.

      Enabling encompassing policies and initiatives to boost circular economy solutions with resilience and planet-neutral value chain systems.

    3. c.

      Changing the view of technology as an enabler, serving people, complementing Industry 4.0 by a human-centric, sustainable, resilient Industry 5.0Footnote 64—leading to new social practices and options for digital, green, and social industrial development.

  7. 7.

    Encompassing complexity management approachesFootnote 65,Footnote 66,Footnote 67 systems thinking, and open innovation to bridge science and practice so as to facilitate the triple transition on a global scale.

    How can complex adaptive systems be facilitated for the alignment of individual and collective purpose(s)? This is a challenge that we have not yet mastered (and in some cases not even touched upon) as humanity. It is the hardest to achieve co-evolution via systems design and alignment of strategy, tactics, and operations as managerial approaches fit for complexity, contextual capture, unpredictability, and iterativeFootnote 68 adaptation.

    We find ourselves in the premise of Gell-Mann, paralleling quarks and living beings: “Think how hard physics would be if particles could think!”.Footnote 69 There is no “manager of the world”, but we should achieve global dynamic reconfiguration of capabilities by competence and passion, by ecosystems of co-creation, sustaining outcomes, not just outputs, by multi/cross/trans/interdisciplinary problem-based collaborative actions, by dissolving boundaries, and by making functional bridges while aiming to achieve collective (and individual) purpose(s). These approaches are needed for each clique, union, region, global citizen.

    This is how complex adaptive systems interrelate—this must be taken into consideration if we wish to initiate positive change proactively, rather than reacting to calls for help.

  8. 8.

    Evolving new models of collaborative efforts and engagement such as vortices of co-creation and alignment of ideas, innovations, and unavoidable co-design priorities and agenda setting.

    The adoption of multi-agent engagement (citizens, professionals, policymakers, and experts) in specific transformative actions will generate new ways of defining shared purposes and visions; integrating encompassingFootnote 70 strategies and initiatives; and their co-evolving implementation in the relevant contexts (neighbourhoods, communities, cities, territories, etc.).

    1. a.

      Building needed skills, training enablers, and forging a new generation of role models and leaders, designing capacity building, mentoring, and lifelong learning to enhance career path programmes for leaders, enablers, and agents of change.

      The new digital world will be about tackling problems together. This means that a wide variety of professional groups, cultures, and qualifications must work together to find ways of mastering challenges. Specific policies, programmes, and initiatives can enhance citizens’ training in exercising responsibility, with all individuals investing their own time and energy in developing their perspective of responsibility. Technology and digitisation are just the tools (and the same goes for the legal and policy frameworks) that we will all be using.

      Mind-set and role models are far more important, as are people who have already proven how they can combine these different qualifications to create successful new business models and new interactions. In a similar way that we need to share good stories about our visions and how we achieve them, we need qualified role models who can master new challenges. How we push this role model idea will also be crucial for transformation. If people learn firsthand from role models how they have dealt with different challenges, the fear of the new and unknown will no longer be prevalent.

    2. b.

      Including individuals and groups usually left out (the youngerFootnote 71 and older generations, people with functional diversity, etc., developing non-EU candidate countriesFootnote 72 and neighbours’ capabilities, migrants and refugees from other cultures, etc.) as key players and full actors with a voice, agency, and active participation within the triple transition processesFootnote 73,Footnote 74 The social transition can help open up innovation ecosystems to new actors through different community projects and labs, helping national innovation ecosystems and institutions (universities, industrial labs, public administration) and increasing their social impact. In that sense, tackling the social transition can help to build up universal innovation ecosystems, when every citizen can learn to innovate, as in the CitilabFootnote 75 and FabLabsFootnote 76 networks.

    3. c.

      Using the SDGs as a framework for collaborative action: The Sustainable Development Goals offer a coherent common set of goals, targets, and indicators as reference points for fostering multi-level, multi-stakeholder cooperation. International multi-stakeholder platforms, such as the multi-stakeholder platform on SDGs,Footnote 77 should be fostered at EU level to promote specific joint actions from a triple transition based on cross-sector partnerships within and between institutions, academia, the private sector, civil society, etc.

5 Conclusion

One of the collateral effects of the COVID-19 pandemic has been to put in evidence the problems derived from the lack of integration of social, digital, and environmental factors and dimensions. In a time of massive digital technologies deployment, determined by social and environmental concerns, the traditional functionalist approach as a way to organise complex societies has limited possibilities to sort out the multiple interactions and factors involved in transformational processes. We need a systemic approach, centred in societal development, which facilitates the interaction of people, digital, energy, and environmental concerns in order to balance economy and society in a more sustainable way.

To do this, we need to catalyse, encompass, and integrate existing and emerging social and digital technologies, which help us articulate a universal innovation system. The “collaboratories”, the new generation of innovation models and “artefacts”, are cooperative innovative instruments based on a peer-to-peer systemic approach. These are needed to organise and properly address the complex transition that humanity has ahead. The collaboratories will help us co-create the collaborative society of the future, developing win-win games (green, social, economic, political) through multi-i flexible facilitation dynamicsFootnote 78. They will allow us to coordinate the multiple stakeholders involved and foster social and digital innovation projects to transform our society into a knowledge-based society grounded on the intensive use of digital technologies.

We need radically new tactics for the “how” (green, techno-digital), for the strategic “what” (green, social), for the purposeful “why” (green, social), and for the operational “how best” (green, social, techno-digital) within the governing principles of eco-centric society.

Co-evolution is the only evolution that is there, and we need it so that we all improve together (that includes the EU, Europe as a whole, and the world), by activating the collective brain and co-dreaming.

Innovation in context can help the replication, translation, and localisationFootnote 79 of best practices. We must wrap up with openness (of boundaryless, paywall-less science, projects, missions, and purposes) encompassing flows of ideas and the emergence of solutions from the potential of the world in regard to what each of us can bring to life on this planet.

In this chapter. we used the image of the “trois Mousquetaires” (read: MuskEUteers) to put in value the need of a systemic approach to integrate social, digital, and green transitions as a “one for all and all for one” solution for the European and the world challenges ahead.