A simple but very clear and diaphanous vision of innovation consists in considering that it takes place when some solution or some development is integrated into an economic activity or a business model . Everything that happens before that is very interesting, generates a lot of knowledge and, like an investment, has significant associated risk, but it is not innovation. 

Therefore, the main actor in innovation are companies, regardless of their size, capable of introducing, adapting and adopting knowledge and, very often, technology in the form of new products, services or solutions.

In relation to this technology adoption process, we are in a very significant historical moment and context. The physical and tangible world has been irreversibly combined with the digital world. This process is mainly due to the expansion and development of transversal technologies that facilitate it. Technologies such as the internet of things, 3D printing, artificial intelligence, simulation, robotics, cyber security... Not to mention technological areas in which the role played by digitization makes them advance, too , at high speeds: biomedicine, chemistry, drug development...

In this context, it is more relevant than ever that companies become aware that they are part of an innovation ecosystem where the necessary elements are found to facilitate technological adoption and innovative activity.

The physical limits that determine a innovation ecosystem are territorial. Thus, we can refer to the innovation ecosystem of a district or neighborhood, of a city, of a region, of a country... But, in any case, in all innovation ecosystems a series of agents are identified that are key and necessary for the efficiency of what takes place there. In a generic way, these actors can be grouped into the following categories: 

• Linking Agents: they are institutions, both public and private, which, among their multiple functions, have that of connecting organizations with similar interests in order to take advantage of synergies and take greater momentum between them. This would be the case of chambers of commerce, employers or public innovation support agencies.
• Enabling Agents: they are those who contribute resources to the ecosystem for to promote the development of new projects, either inside or outside the habitat itself. In other words, they provide tools, financial resources, infrastructure, talent or consultancy. They correspond to initiatives such as incubators, accelerators, investment funds, training centers or co-working spaces, among others.
• Knowledge Generating Agents:  organizations and institutions focused on research and development. Actors in the ecosystem that generate knowledge and that, at the same time, promote the creation of new projects and develop innovative technologies and technological solutions. This is the case of technology centers, research and design centers or some university departments.
• Promoting Agents: they are those actors who carry out dissemination tasks, disclosure, dissemination and promotion of innovation that takes place in the ecosystem. In this category we find public agencies or media.
• Communities: this is a type of agent that is often born without a formal structure or organization and that has been emerging in ecosystems in a visible way in recent years. Communities form, grow and develop beyond public innovation policies and bring stability and sustainability to the ecosystem. 

Companies must regularly take a look at their day-to-day life to be able to perceivethe ecosystem that surrounds them and be able to make those decisions that allow them to take advantage of the agents that make it up in the most efficient and intelligent way possible.