Abstract
The growing popularity and increasing impact of the Maker Movement has the potential to modify long-established industrial design, manufacturing and funding processes on a global scale. Characterised by a renewed interest in entrepreneurial activity, Maker communities are becoming commonplace worldwide, shaped by rapid changes in technology and global interconnection. The Maker ethos of tinkering, experimenting, and creating platforms for learning and collaboration, while being crucial for new forms of innovation, raises key questions for EU policy and competiveness. If the EU is to capitalise on this emerging phenomenon and measure itself against both established economies (the US) and emerging economies (Asia and Central America), it must solidify its entrepreneurial advantage: that of the single market.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Aghion, P., Besley, T., Browne, J., Caselli, F., Lambert, R., Lomax, R., Pissarides, C., Stern, N., & Van Reene, J. (2013). Investing for prosperity: A manifesto for growth. Report of the LSE growth commission. Skills, infrastructure and innovation. London. http://www.lse.ac.uk/researchAndExpertise/units/growthCommission/documents/pdf/LSEGC-Report.pdf. Accessed 3 October 2014.
Baudrillard, J. (2009). La Sociedad del Consumo. Sus Mitos, sus Estructuras. Madrid: Siglo XXI.
Bradley, K. (2014). Toward a peer economy: How open source and peer to peer architecture, hardware and consumption are transforming the economy. In K. Bradley & J. Hedren (Eds.), Green utopianism: Perspectives, politics and micro-practices (pp. 183–204). New York and Abingdon: Routledge.
Brahms, L., & Werner, J. (2013). Designing Makerspaces for family learning in museums and science centers. In M. Honey & D. E. Kanter (Eds.), Design, make, play: Growing the next generation of STEM innovators (pp. 71–94). New York and Abingdon: Routledge.
Cohen, S. S., & Fields, G. (2000). Social capital and capital gains in Silicon Valley. In E. L. Lesser (ed.), Knowledge and social capital. Foundations and applications (pp. 179–200). Woburn: Butterworth-Heinemann.
Deloitte. (2013). Impact of the maker movement. https://www.deloitte.com/assets/Dcom-UnitedStates/Local%20Assets/Documents/TMT_us_tmt/us_tmt_ImpactOfTheMakerMovement_070114.pdf. Accessed 3 October 2014.
Dougherty, D. (2012). The maker movement. Innovations, 7(3), 11–14.
Dougherty, D. (2013). The Maker mindset. In M. Honey & D. E. Kanter (Eds.), Design, make, play: Growing the next generation of STEM innovators (pp. 7–11). New York and Abingdon: Routledge.
Egan, M. (2012). Twenty years after the completion of the EU’s single market programme, member states have still not eliminated all barriers to trade. LSE blog. http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2012/11/08/single-market-egan/. Accessed on 4 October 2014.
Etsy. (2014). A call to action, five proposals to support the emerging maker economy. https://blog.etsy.com/news/files/2014/06/MakerEconomyPaper_0617.pdf. Accessed on 4 October 2014.
European Commission. (2014). EU cohesion policy 2014–2020, targeting investments on key growth priorities. http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/sources/docgener/informat/2014/fiche_sme_en.pdf. Accessed 3 October 2014.
Forbes. (2014). Beyond the maker movement: How the changemakers are the future of education. 29 July. http://www.forbes.com/sites/singularity/2014/07/29/beyond-the-maker-movement-how-the-changemakers-are-the-future-of-education. Accessed on 5 October 2014.
Gerosa, A., & Tirapani, A. N. (2013). The culture of entrepreneurship, creating your own job. European View, 12(2), 205–14.
LSE (London School of Economics). (2014). UK ninth most entrepreneurial economy globally. 9 April. http://www.lse.ac.uk/newsAndMedia/news/archives/2014/04/GEDI2014.aspx. Accessed 3 October 2014.
LSE Enterprise. (2011). Study on the impact of the single market on cohesion: Implications for cohesion policy, growth and competitiveness. Final report. December. http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/sources/docgener/studies/pdf/single_market/single_market_report.pdf. Accessed 4 October 2014.
OECD. (2011). OECD science, technology and industry scoreboard 2011. 20 September. http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/science-and-technology/oecd-science-technology-and-industry-scoreboard-2011_sti_scoreboard-2011-en. Accessed 3 October 2014.
Resnick, M., & Rosenbaum, E. (2013). Designing for tinkerability. In M. Honey & D. E. Kanter (Eds.), Design, make, play: Growing the next generation of STEM innovators (pp. 163–81). New York and Abingdon: Routledge.
The Economist. (2012a). European entrepreneurs: Les Misérables. 28 July.
The Economist. (2012b). The new maker rules. 24 November.
ThinkYoung & CES (Centre for European Studies). (2013). Overcoming the stigma of failure, perceptions of the European youth. Brussels: ThinkYoung AISBL.
ThinkYoung, European Schoolnet & Intel. (2014). Skills mismatch in science, technology, engineering, mathematics—Research report. Brussels: ThinkYoung AISBL.
Tocchetti, S. (2012). Diybiologist as ‘Makers’ of personal biologies: How Make magazine and Maker Faires contribute in constituting biology as a personal technology. Journal of Peer Production, 2. http://peerproduction.net/issues/issue-2/peer-reviewed-papers/diybiologists-as-makers/. Accessed 3 October 2014.
Trew, J. (2014). The UK maker movement has a new home by the Thames. Engadget.com, 28 April. http://www.engadget.com/2014/04/28/makerversity-and-crowdrooster/. Accessed 4 October 2014.
Ulinj, J., & Brown, T. E. (2004). Innovation, entrepreneurship and culture, a matter of interaction between technology, progress and economic growth? An introduction. In J. Ulinj & T. E. Brown (eds.), Innovation, entrepreneurship and culture. The interaction between technology, progress and economic growth. Massachusetts: Edward Elgar Publishing Limited pp. 1–38.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
About this article
Cite this article
Howard, C., Gerosa, A., Mejuto, M.C. et al. The Maker Movement: a new avenue for competition in the EU. European View 13, 333–340 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12290-014-0336-0
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12290-014-0336-0