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  • Home
  • About
    • Contributors
    • Guide for contributors
  • Themes
    • Roadmapping
    • Open Innovation
    • Managing the R&D pipeline
    • Technology Strategy
    • Managing international R&D
    • Ideation and creativity in R&D
    • Impact of digital technologies
    • The resurgence of frugal innovation
  • Tools
  • News
  • Resources
  • Papers
  • Case Studies
  • Events
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Open Innovation

Open Innovation (OI) is an approach whereby organisations, originally companies but increasingly governments and NGOs, seek to collaborate with others to deliver innovation. Innovation is naturally a collaborative activity, but the practice really came to the attention of practitioners and academics when Henry Chesbrough coined the phrase ‘Open Innovation’ in 2003 in a book of the same name. He defined it as: the purposive inflows and outflows of knowledge to accelerate internal innovation, and expand the markets for external use of innovation, respectively. (Chesbrough, 2003).

This theme could equally have been titled ‘Collaborative Innovation’, and we’ll be embracing best practice and learning from all manner of such activities.

The permeable funnel

Open innovation has been described as adding a ‘permeable boundary’ between the organisation and the external environment. Information and knowledge flows into and out of the ‘innovation funnel’, as ideas are developed into products and services that are taken to market. [See figure]. This concept embraces numerous interaction types: the adoption of blue-skies research; licensing of mature Intellectual Property (IP); co-branding of mature products and spin-out of under-utilised technologies.

The Permeable Funnel [click to enlarge]
The Permeable Funnel [click to enlarge]

The Want-Find-Get-Manage Model

The W-F-G-M model developed by Gene Slowinski (Slowinski, 2004) is perhaps the most widely adopted framework for OI. This sets out the four key stages in the life-cycle of collaboration: identifying what resources are Wanted; Finding potential external sources; Getting access to these resources; and Managing the relationship.

Benefits from an open approach

OI has been widely adopted across many industrial sectors, with FMCG, pharma and computing being in the vanguard. Faster, better and cheaper are often cited as benefits. Amongst the highest profile adopters is P&G, with former CEO, AG Lafley, inspiring a change in culture from ‘not invented here’ to ‘proudly invented elsewhere.’ The thinking has converged into the not-for-profit sphere, as illustrated by the ‘open access malaria box’ project, which provides free and open access to 400 compounds with anti-malarial properties.

Hard and soft challenges

Moving to a more open approach requires organisations to re-think many of their business processes, aligning procedures to the W-F-G-M framework, and perhaps rebalancing their innovation resources and infrastructure. However, research suggests that simply rewiring the ‘innovation hardware’ without consideration of soft factors around motivation, skills, culture and metrics is unlikely to yield results. (Mortara et al, 2009)

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Associated Papers
  • Open Innovation between established and emerging bio-pharmaceuticals
  • Direct coaching supports SMEs with inbound knowledge transfer from university
  • Reinventing supplier innovation relationships – nine key findings
Resources
  • How to implement open innovation: Lessons from studying large multinational companies
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Have Your Say…

Theme editors

Tim Minshall
Tim Minshall

Tim is Head of the Centre for Technology Management at IfM

Letizia Mortara
Letizia Mortara

Letizia is a Lecturer at the University of Cambridge and Head of the R&D Management Conference.

Dominic Oughton
Dominic Oughton

Dominic is Principal Industrial Fellow for IfM Education and Consultancy Services Associates

Posts relating to open innovation

  • OI and performance
    Open Innovation between established and emerging bio-pharmaceuticals
    In the UK, early stage bio-pharmaceutical companies gain enhanced patenting performance through Open Innovation in contrast to the established companies, which experienced challenges. This is one for the findings by Despoina Filiou and is contrary to the experience in the USA.
    Read More
  • Figure 1 The New World Kirkpatrick Model (1994)
    Direct coaching supports SMEs with inbound knowledge transfer from university
    Could coaching provide the support that SME's require to improve their innovation activities? In a pilot 10 SMEs were introduced to strategy and technology management tools developed through research and given coaching on applying these tools to their own processes to improve their innovation activities.
    Read More
  • virtual collaboration
    Collaborative innovation in a time of social distancing - 5 things we now...
    Like so many meetings, the IfM’s Open Innovation Forum's March workshop, was hastily reconvened into a virtual event due to the coronavirus crisis. Co-organiser Dominic Oughton, discusses some of the learning points.  
    Read More
  • Interesting papers from Technovation
    Interesting papers from Technovation
    Imoh Ilevbare works at Institute for Manufacturing, University of Cambridge as a Product Manager he has provided a quick overview of these papers from Technovation
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  • Remi Bastien Renault
    Renault is on track for autonomous driving
    Scenario identification is creating use case definitions for real world driving safety critical scenarios, explains Rémi Bastien, Vice President for Automotive Prospective, Renault Group.
    Read More
  • Leveraging Open Innovation for societal impact
    Leveraging Open Innovation for societal impact - an R&D Management special issue
    How could open innovation (OI) collaborative practices provide a way to tackle the world's most pressing societal challenges - eradication of disease? Reduction of carbon emissions?  Creation of more sustainable products and services? A special issue of R&D Management investigates this proposition from a number of perspectives and provides insights into how current open innovation approaches may contribute to improving...
    Read More
  • Measuring open innovation diagram
    Procter & Gamble shift to Open Innovation
    This paper analyses Procter and Gamble's ‘Connect and Develop’ strategy as a case study of major organisational and technological changes associated with open innovation.
    Read More
  • OI Pitching event plastic
    The problem of plastic: Open Innovation Forum tackles sustainable packaging
    The OI Forum tackled the packaging challenge using a structured ‘Design Thinking’ approach to discover new solutions
    Read More
  • Nicky Athanassoupoulou
    How to support SMEs become more innovative through knowledge-transfer
    Small and medium sized businesses account for 66 per cent of total employment in the EU and contribute 57 per cent of the value - but how much support do they have to be innovative and can coaching help?
    Read More
  • Figure 1 The New World Kirkpatrick Model (1994)
    How inbound open innovation helps SMEs learn and improve: knowledge transfer from university...
    This paper explores how coaching using University generated knowledge can be seen as a form of inbound organizational innovation that enables SMEs to improve their innovation activities.
    Read More
  • Promoting Innovation through Living Labs
    Promoting Innovation through Living Labs
    Living labs offer a platform for companies to engage in open innovation activities with customers, to collect vital ideas, useful feedback, valuable user experiences, and new information,
    Read More
  • What Skills do we need for Open Innovation - Want Find Get Manage
    What skills do we need for Open Innovation?
    To be successful an OI team needs around forty specific skills covering the four stages of OI – Want, Find, Get, Manage – these skills fall into four categories: introspective, extrospective, interactive and technical.
    Read More
  • Hidden Champions: Small companies ride to the top in open innovation networks
    In his book Managing Open Innovation in SMEs, (Cambridge University Press, June 2017), Professor Wim Vanhaverbeke considers bike-part manufacturer Curana’s success and highlights how small companies are embracing the global trend toward Open Innovation through collaborating with external partners to create breakthrough products and services.
    Read More
  • Architecting the digital supply chain
    Food for Thought – The Open Innovation Forum finds a hotbed for start-ups
    Dominic Oughton reflects on the 2017 Open Innovation Forum Pitching Contest and the ways in which the competition has evolved since its inception.
    Read More
  • Managing-Open-Innovation-in-SMEs
    Good Things in Small Packages - Open Innovation isn’t just for large firms
    Professor Wim Vanhaverbeke's new book Managing Open Innovation in SMEs shows that open innovation is not just for large companies, and offers in-depth analysis of open innovation practices in small firms.
    Read More
  • Paavo Ritala at WOIC 2017
    Moonshots and megatrends observations from World Open Innovation Conference
    Paavo Ritala, reports from the 4th Annual World Open Innovation Conference and comments that we are moving towards better understanding of both micro and macro environments of open innovation.
    Read More
  • Open Innovation at Heineken
    Open Innovation at Heineken
    Heineken has been experimenting with different models for facilitating ideation with external partners, culminating in the launch of its Innovators Brewhouse 2.0, which aims to balance creativity with finding solutions to real world needs.
    Read More
  • Open approaches helped Fiat to avoid substantial reduction of R&D and innovation capability
    Can openness enhance a firm’s performance in an economic downturn?
    Observations suggest that Open Innovation in a downturn can help build resilience; Joon Mo Ahn, Letizia Mortara and Tim Minshall tested this hypothesis with an analysis of the UK CIS data.
    Read More
  • MAKING ASYMMETRIC PARTNERSHIPS WORK
    Making asymmetric partnerships work
    Bringing together start-ups and established firms in mutually beneficial partnerships seems an obvious solution. However, research shows that making such asymmetric partnerships work can be problematic. Here are five ways to increase the chances of success.
    Read More
  • At what point does ‘Open Innovation’ become just ‘Innovation’?
    Dominic Oughton considers two related questions: ‘How relevant is collaboration in innovation, now and going forwards?’ and ‘Does the brand ‘Open Innovation’ still serve any value?’
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  • Letizia Mortara
    Letizia Mortara to head up new R&D Management Conference office
    Dr Letizia Mortara has been appointed head of the R&D Management Conference Office, a new position announced by RADMA chairman Jeremy Klein at the 2017 Leuven conference.
    Read More
  • VisLab - The Italian way to Open Innovation - Technology Transfer
    The “Italian way” to Open Innovation
    Rapid changes in the external environment require organizations to embrace the paradigms of ‘Open Innovation’ and ‘Open organization’. Here three different approaches are discussed to show how Italian firms are taking such paradigms from theory to practice.
    Read More
  • How do we measure the value of investment in Open Innovation?
    What activity leads to what value/outputs in Open Innovation, and what is the threshold where we decide whether there was a significant ‘open’ aspect? The cynical answer might be that it depends on the ultimate success of the investment and who is trying to support which agenda! Dominic Oughton highlights the lack of metrics to measure the value of...
    Read More
  • Is your leadership style hindering open innovation implementation?
    New open innovation implementation implies strategic changes which of course in turn represent a different level of risk. These individual types of risks are easier to be tackled by CEOs with certain characteristics than others, as author Joonmo Ahn explains.
    Read More
  • 5 essential tips to implementing an open innovation approach in your organization
    Your approach to Open Innovation should be defined by the corporate strategy, say Professor Ellen Enkel. A defender's strategy needs a different approach to a prospector and culture will eat strategy for breakfast if you don't selected the right people. She gives her 5 tips for success.
    Read More
  • The Permeable Funnel [click to enlarge]
    Open innovation
    Open Innovation (OI) is an approach whereby organisations, originally companies but increasingly governments and NGOs, seek to collaborate with others to deliver innovation.
    Read More
  • A 360-degree perspective of connected innovation
    It has long been an observation from the Open Innovation research group that the 'outbound' aspect of OI is massively under-exploited by businesses. So Olaf Gruess, Disruptive Technology Manager & Global Connector at General Mills discussion of 'enabled supply' is interesting.
    Read More
  • Top 20 innovation blogs
    Top 20 Innovation Blogs of 2016
    There is a very useful overview of innovation bloggers on the InnovationManagement.se website that they have ranked into a Top 20 list. From a shortlist of 63 blogs, three innovation blog editors have compiled a list of the top 20 of 2016, as well as five to look out for in 2017. Click here to view the top 20 Innovation Blogs of...
    Read More
  • Whole value chain approach to open innovation
    Strategic issues and opportunities in the food and drink sector need a joined-up approach to make real progress: sustainability; provenance and obesity can’t be tackled through bi-party relationships alone and this is where open innovation comes into its own.
    Read More
  • Open Innovation Practices and Their Effect on Innovation Performance
    Open Innovation Practices and Their Effect on Innovation Performance
    Revealing interesting findings on the impact of Open Innovation, this paper develops an indicator framework for examining open innovation practices and their impact on performance.
    Read More
  • How to implement open innovation: Lessons from studying large multinational companies
    Open innovation is an innovation in itself and therefore has to be effectively managed right from the beginning if it is to be successfully implemented. This workbook, based on the the lessons of multinational organisations, aims to support senior R&D managers implement an open innovation strategy.
    Read More
  • Open versus closed innovation: are the metrics good enough?
    Open versus closed innovation: are the metrics good enough?
    Today’s business reality is not based on pure open innovation but on companies that invest simultaneously in closed as well as open innovation activities. Too much openness can negatively impact companies’ long-term innovation success, because it could lead to loss of control and core competences. Moreover, a closed innovation approach does not serve the increasing demands of shorter innovation cycles...
    Read More
  • Open R&D and Open Innovation: exploring the phenomenon
    Open R&D and open innovation: exploring the phenomenon
    There is currently a broad awareness of open innovation and its relevance to corporate R&D. The implications and trends that underpin open innovation are actively discussed in terms of strategic, organizational, behavioral, knowledge, legal and business perspectives, and its economic implications.
    Read More

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