Open Innovation: Implications for Innovation and Knowledge Exchange

Open innovation is a radical departure from the traditional Research and Development (R&D) models, as firms seek to become more innovative, agile and open in the way they operate their innovation processes and become more efficient and productive in this process. However, there have been few opportunities to share and develop experiences associated with setting up and running open innovation activities with private or public organisations more widely. Open innovation concepts have also widened to encompass more novel and effective techniques to organise and manage groups or networks or companies and public organisations in a particular locale or sector.

The course would therefore be of value and key interest to managers and research and technical staff from a wide variety of organisations from both the public and private sectors, as well as from manufacturing and service industries and the non-profit sector. The objective of study will provide an overview and analysis of open innovation, positing it within the context of wider R&D, technology and innovation activities and knowledge exchange, including their strategic purpose, economic structure, coordination and operational practice, governance and policy.

This module will cover a wide range of approaches to understanding the basic structure of open innovation and will provide more detailed firm and sector examples. This includes the pharmaceutical and healthcare and open source software sectors; and, a number of specific firm and organisation examples, such as Proctor & Gamble and NASA.

Course aims

• To introduce students to the concept and practice of open innovation so that they gain a better understanding of research, innovation and knowledge exchange strategy and practice.
• To review current approaches to open innovation within the private and public sectors, including non-profit organisations.
• To appreciate what kinds of activities are required in planning and developing an open innovation strategy at an organisational level and what kind of resources and actions are needed to succeed in this.
• To understand the key issues and barriers towards implementing a successful strategy of open innovation within an organisation.
• To increase understanding of, and develop skills in, open innovation and knowledge exchange processes.
• To facilitate the exchange of relevant experience, ideas and approaches within the group of participants.