Open innovation is a business model, strategy and practice that encourage companies to acquire knowledge, technologies and resources from external sources such as customers, suppliers, and universities.

In so doing, internal innovation is enhanced, accelerating time to market, improving current products and developing new technologies to expand into new markets.

Through open innovation, companies can also find alternative ways to use internally developed technologies by licensing, spin-outs and collaboration. Although companies have long been collaborating with buyers and suppliers, open innovation means looking beyond existing networks to tap into the wider ecosystem to explore and exploit new ideas and technologies.

From this perspective, it is essential to identify and collaborate with the right innovation partners. To release the innovation potential of organisations, open innovation promotes competencies for searching, capturing, managing and commercialising products and services.

Activities include:

• implementation of open innovation practices
• landscaping and market search
• innovation process mapping
• collaboration readiness workshops
• commercialisation strategies and routes to market analysis
• implementation of design thinking principles and practice
• sprint workshops
• innovation training

Research/knowledge exchange:

• public and private sector innovation management
• open innovation implementation
• product development
• servitization
• supply chain collaboration
• stages of growth in technology intensive SMEs
• innovation strategies for micro-enterprise growth