Scouting innovation results for knowledge sourcing and collaboration with experts

1. Open Platform for Innovative SMEs
Marco Battistella
t2i - technology transfer and innovation
PWR NUCLEI Open Seminar - Wrocław, 15 December 2017
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marco.battistella@t2i.it
Scouting innovation results for
knowledge sourcing and collaboration with experts

2. Open Innovation Practice - Which option to choose?
• ask the market intelligence team
• attend conferences
• external consultant
• address the question to experts
• ask as many people as possible (crowd)
• ... open innovation platform?
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3. 1/5
Background
Absorptive capacity and barriers to
Open Innovation
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4. New Product Development process - The stage-gate approach
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5. New Product Development process - The innovation funnel
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6. How does your organization source external knowledge?
• the capacity to recognize the value of new knowledge gathered
from external sources, to assimilate it and exploit it for
commercial use is called Absorptive Capacity1 (ACAP)
• its development at organizational level implies specific investments in
Human Resource Management practices2 (routines, database,
communication, gatekeeping rolesm boundary spanning...)
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1 PROCESS DIMENSIONS: Cohen e Levinthal, 1990; Zahra e George, 2002; Lane et al., 2006; Todorova e Durisin, 2007
2 ORGANIZATIONAL ANTECEDENTS: Van den Bosch et al., 1999; Jansen et al., 2005; Vega-Jurado et al., 2008

7. Innovation Project Management à managing boundaries
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• Recognition (REC) monitoring,
selecting, developing
communication channels
• Assimilation (ASM) evaluating,
translating, addressing to
gatekeepers

8. New Product Development: some issues for SMEs’ R&D
• product complexity and customers’ expectations are rising
• conflicting requirements (cost vs durability, performance vs green)
• multiple tech fields need to be addressed (materials, physics,
human factors, electronics, ...)
• shorter time-to-market à avoid “reinventing the wheel”
• collaborating with the right expert improve R&D results
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9. Engaging with the right expert
The existing knowledge is huge, not easy to scout and exploit
• 10 million researchers in the world
• 1 million scientific papers published every year
• ~ 200 million scientific papers published until today
Many technology fields (ex. “materials”) are very wide
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10. Matching the right problem with the right expert
The right expert is currently active in
that area, and has deep knowledge of
the state-of-the-art, requiring less time
to propose a solution.
Innovate Better, Faster, Cheaper!
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11. 2/5
The Project
Matching SMEs with the right experts
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12. 12
OPENiSME project: overview
Facilitation of Open Innovation partnerships
through a innovative semantic search engine
that crawls scientific literature and patent databases
Co-funded by European Union Competitiveness and
Innovation Framework Programme (GA 621121)
Duration: Dec 2014 - May 2018
Stages: 3 trial steps with SMEs

13. Consortium
T2I - Technology Transfer Innovation LP
Academy Entrepreneurship Astikietaira
FULDA - University of Applied Sciences
IdeXlab
IJS - Institut Jozef Stefan
LMT - Laval Mayenne Technopole
TAGES
UCL - University College of London
V2020 - Vision 2020 Network
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14. 3/5
The Platform
A complete tool set for OI process
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15. A reliable solution
• based on a already developed
and working platform mostly
used by large companies.
• develop features to better
meet the needs of SMEs
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16. The platform can be used to:
Solve problems or generate new ideas
Benchmark with state-of-the-art
Identify partners for R&D (funded) projects
Scout for innovative suppliers
Find qualified personnel to hire
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17. Key features
Unlocking the innovation capacity for SMEs
through Open Innovation

18. The process
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19. The process
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20. The process
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21. The process
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22. The process
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23. The process
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24. 4/5
Demo session
Set up a OI project involving
international experts
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25. Start a OI PROJECT, then SEARCH for keywords
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Select a technology
field and identify the
TRL starting point of
your desired project

26. Search results interface
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Estracting info out of 200
million references
list of best experts out of
all those that published on
the topic (380/1300)

27. Search results interface
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abstracts of each expert’s publications
related to the topic
Possibility to ADD an expert and SIMILAR

28. Contacting the experts
• The first contact step is anonymous, to avoid the company from disclosing reserved
information to unsuitable or uninterested experts.
• The company selects the most interesting proposal based on content, price and reputation.
• The collaboration agreement is freely negotiated between the company and the expert,
according to the needs and the type of activity (tech transfer, partnership, sub-contracting)
• Collaboration costs (i.e. expert fees) are not covered by the project, but often eligible for co-
funding at local, national or European level.
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29. 5/5
Use cases and next Steps
Future activities and call for interest
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30. Use cases and next Steps
Future activities and call for interest
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31. Use cases and next Steps
Future activities and call for interest
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32. Use cases and next Steps
Future activities and call for interest
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33. Trial results with SMEs so far
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• € 2 million research
contracts total value
• € 16+ million total
value for SMEs

34. Taking part to the trials: benefit for SMEs
• Any interested company can take part in a free trial
(including use of the platform, support from OPENiSME
partners, expert selection and first contact)
• Cost of expert consultancy is not included
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35. Take a 5 min survey about Open Innovation
10 questions for intermediaries https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/7WNLPYK
You will be given:
• Free and full access to the OPENiSME platform until 1 April 2018
• A training webinar to use the platform
• Technical and methodological support to all OPENiSME services
• Access to the results of the questionnaire
• Access to white papers and publications on Open Innovation
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36. Not all of the smart people in
the world work for you
Bill Joy, Sun Microsystems co-founder
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37. Contacts
email: openisme@t2i.it nuclei@t2i.it
web: www.openisme.eu http://opentech.t2i.it
twitter: @openisme_eu @NUCLEI_project
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Marco Battistella
t2i - technology transfer and innovation
marco.battistella@t2i.it