Building Innovation in Cyprus

Where good ideas meet real people

On 17 September 2026, Juliane Keller delivered the keynote “Building Innovation in Cyprus” at Cyprus Connect & Grow in Larnaca.

The speech explored a question that sits at the centre of much of ISSEAD’s work: what makes innovation genuinely useful?

Rather than focusing on funding opportunities alone, the keynote looked at practical value, trust, collaboration, honest learning, public investment, local capability and the question of what should remain when a funded project ends.

Below is the keynote as delivered.

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Good evening,

I am German, I live and work in Cyprus for more than 10 years. And that means I have spent quite a lot of time comparing the two countries.

Sometimes deliberately.

Sometimes because, as a German, I cannot help myself.

And when we talk about innovation and funding, there is one comparison that seems obvious.

Germany is big. Cyprus is small.

Germany has huge companies, strong research institutions, and major industrial clusters.

Cyprus has fewer of all of those things.

So it would be easy to conclude that there are simply fewer opportunities here.

I think that conclusion is wrong.

Cyprus is a small market.

But it is not a small opportunity space.

And tonight I want to talk about how innovation can actually be built here.

Not by giving you a list of grants.

Because I have seen what happens when somebody hears the word “funding”.

Very quickly, the conversation becomes:

“What can I apply for?”

Tonight I want to talk about something more fundamental.

How do we build things here that are actually worth building?

Because I think we sometimes put too much emphasis on the word innovation itself.

Innovation sounds good.

Everyone wants innovation.

Governments want it.

Companies want it.

Funding programmes definitely want it.

But innovation is not the goal.

Innovation is a tool.

Something being new does not automatically make it useful.

And something being innovative certainly does not automatically mean that it improves our lives.

I hear people say all the time that things are getting worse, despite all the progress, technology and innovation around us.

So innovation itself cannot be the goal.

The more important question is:

Is this actually worth building?

Does it solve a problem?

Will somebody use it?

Will it make something better?

And will it still matter after the project, the programme or the funding has finished?

That might sound obvious.

But in funded projects, it is surprisingly easy to lose sight of it.

The participant numbers are there.

The indicators are achieved.

The activities happened.

The feedback is summarised.

The project looks successful.

And very often, everybody involved has an incentive for it to look successful.

The project team wants to demonstrate that it delivered.

The funding authority wants to demonstrate that public money created value.

Nobody is particularly excited about discovering that participants did not like the initiative very much.

Or that people attended because it was free, but would never choose it again.

Or that something technically happened, but made very little difference afterwards.

That is why I think we have to be careful not to confuse

reported success with experienced success.

The real test starts when a project meets actual life.

And I think this is where some initiatives that begin with very good intentions run into trouble.

They meet real people.

Real habits.

Real resistance.

And sometimes the reaction is not what the project expected.

That reaction is information.

If people reject something, avoid it, criticise it, or simply do not use it, we should be curious about why.

But when a lot of time, money and reputation have already been invested, it can become very tempting to explain that reaction away rather than learn from it.

We have a good example of that coming up this Sunday.

Very close to where I live in Limassol, Gladstonos Street, normally a busy city center street, is supposed to become car-free for one day.

And I am genuinely curious.

I want to see what actually happens.

How will drivers react?

Will residents enjoy the space?

Will businesses see a benefit?

Will the street actually feel better without cars?

And ultimately, does it improve everyday life for the people who live there?

I do not know.

That is exactly why I want to go.

The same questions apply to the changes we are already seeing in Limassol, including new bus lanes.

Anyone who lives here knows the pressure on the roads.

So the interesting question is not whether public transport is a good idea on paper.

The interesting question is whether people will actually use it, and what has to happen for that change to work in real life.

We can discuss mobility concepts, sustainability and urban policy endlessly.

But at some point the idea has to meet real people, real habits and behaviour.

And be prepared to discover that your original idea was wrong.

That last part matters.

Because admitting that something does not work is not failure.

Sometimes that is the most valuable result you can produce.

This is also where I think Cyprus has a genuine strength.

One thing I have come to appreciate here is pragmatism.

People tend to look at something and ask:

Does it work?

Can we use it?

And, in my experience, Cypriot businesses listen quite closely to their customers.

That sounds simple.

But it is extremely valuable.

A lot of innovation systems are very good at producing strategies, plans and frameworks.

Customers are much less impressed by frameworks.

Reality is much less impressed by frameworks.

If something does not work, people will tell you very quickly.

Or even worse, they simply will not use it.

There is another characteristic of Cyprus that I personally value very much.

The human factor.

The imperfections.

The non-conformities.

The room for judgement.

Modernisation often brings more procedures, more systems and more rules.

And sometimes that is absolutely necessary.

Rules protect people.

Standards can create fairness.

Clear procedures can prevent abuse.

But I do not think progress should automatically mean more rules.

Maybe this is also where my German background influences me.

Germany is very good at rules.

We have rules for almost everything.

And many of them exist for good reasons.

But when rules begin to reach further and further into everyday decisions, something changes.

You start becoming more concerned with whether you are doing something correctly than whether you are doing something sensibly.

And I think innovation needs a certain amount of breathing space.

We need structure to protect people, but enough freedom for people to think, experiment and take responsibility.

Because only in an environment where mistakes are possible can genuine learning happen.

Innovation needs that space.

It needs people who are willing to say:

Maybe there is another way.

Let’s try.

And there is a chance that we might be wrong.

The bigger the investment, the harder it can become to say:

This did not work as expected.

But if disappointing results are turned into a success story, we lose something important.

Because those project results may later be used as evidence for the next programme, the next investment or the next policy decision.

Honest failure is more useful than artificial success.

We need people who are brave enough to admit:

I cannot do this alone.

That brings us to collaboration.

If I see one practical weakness in the innovation environment here, it is probably collaboration.

Not because there are not capable people.

There are.

Not because people are unwilling to share.

Actually, sharing often comes very naturally.

People introduce you.

They tell you who to call.

They meet you for coffee.

They help.

But once collaboration becomes formal, once money, ownership or strategic interests enter the room, mistrust can appear very quickly.

There is an interesting tension here in Cyprus.

Compared with more heavily structured environments, there is still a great deal of informality and personal freedom.

At the same time, I sometimes see people being surprisingly cautious about stepping outside what is socially expected.

That also matters for innovation.

Because having the freedom to experiment is not enough.

People also have to feel able to use that freedom.

And that requires trust.

Trust that a mistake will not immediately destroy your reputation.

Trust that disagreement does not end the relationship.

Trust that somebody can say, “This is not working,” without becoming the problem themselves.

And that is where the human interaction becomes crucial.

Trust is rarely built in spreadsheets.

It is built in conversations.

You learn whether somebody listens.

Whether they follow through.

Whether they tell you when something is going wrong.

Whether you can disagree without the relationship falling apart.

And I think this matters especially in funded collaboration.

Because a consortium can look absolutely perfect on paper and still work terribly in real life.

You can define work packages.

You can define budgets.

You can define responsibilities.

You can define intellectual property.

But you cannot write trust into an annex.

Funding can help, though.

For me, funding has two useful roles.

It shares risk.

And it provides a degree of validation.

Not proof that the idea will succeed.

But an external signal that somebody looked at the idea and the team, and found the case credible enough to support.

At the same time, we should remember that public funding is not neutral.

It reflects priorities.

Public institutions decide which areas they want to encourage, and funding programmes are designed around those priorities.

So yes, your project has to fit the programme.

But there is a difference between understanding the programme and simply writing what you think evaluators want to hear.

I hear that quite often:

“You just have to write what they want.”

I do not think that is the right approach.

A good proposal should explain, truthfully, why the project fits what the programme is trying to achieve.

And if you have to distort your project until it looks fundable, you probably have the wrong call.

In fact, I trust a proposal more when it admits that it has gaps.

A strong project does not need to pretend that it has every answer.

It should understand what it does not have.

Maybe you need external expertise.

Maybe market access.

Maybe a specific technology.

Being able to say that is not weakness.

It is maturity.

And that is exactly where collaboration becomes useful.

Not because we need more logos in a consortium.

But because different people genuinely bring different capabilities.

Public funding can make those combinations possible because the risk does not sit entirely with one organisation.

But then we also have to ask what remains afterwards.

Because ultimately this is public money.

And for me, the measure of successful public investment is not simply how much funding Cyprus manages to absorb.

The measure is what changes.

Does something useful still exist when the funding ends?

A product?

A service?

A better process?

A stronger organisation?

And ultimately, is life here better in some meaningful way?

A healthier environment.

More secure living conditions.

Better opportunities to build a life and a family.

That is where I think the question of identity also becomes important.

Cyprus is very good at adapting.

It absorbs ideas, investment, people, technologies and business models from outside remarkably quickly.

That openness can be a huge strength.

But openness should strengthen local capacity, not replace it.

Before you can confidently choose what to build, you need some clarity about what you value. What do you want to improve? What do you want to protect?

And what do you not want to lose simply because everybody else seems to be moving in the same direction?

Innovation without direction is just change.

Identity gives direction.

And I think Cyprus has an interesting opportunity here.

Not to copy Germany.

Not to copy Silicon Valley.

Not to copy whatever happens to be fashionable somewhere else.

But to become very good at taking knowledge, technology, capital and ideas from outside, combining them with what already works here, and turning them into something that improves life locally.

So if I leave you with one thought tonight, it is this:

Do not innovate because innovation sounds impressive.

Do not apply for funding because funding happens to be available.

Build something worth building.

Test it in real life.

Listen carefully to what actually happens.

Work with people you trust.

Use funding when it helps you share risk and move something useful forward.

And when the project is over, ask the question that matters most:

Is life here, even just a little, better than before?

Because for me, that is what successful innovation in Cyprus should ultimately achieve.