Collaborative innovation networks

Powell, W. W. Koput, K. W. 1996. Interorganizational collaboration and the locus of innovation networks of learning in biotechnology. Administrative Science Quarterly, 41(1) 116-145. 

As traditionally conceived of, the three pillars of growth - professions, infras-tmcture, and investment - work well for markets that are primarily directed toward product and production process innovation. However, for markets that are directed toward the innovation of business and societal systems and networks, the three pillars must be reconceived in the context of collaborative innovation. For example, professions require both deeper expert thinking and multidisciplinary complex communication skills infrastmcture, both technological and institutional, becomes more open and adaptive and investment, both short-term and long-term, is globally interconnected and interdependent. New opportunities and risks abound. 

The same can be said of infrastructure - be it transportation, energy, health care, information technology networks or communications. Taken together, the institutional policy and infrastructure environments create a national infrastructure platform that can accelerate - or impede - the pace and quality of collaborative innovation. 

For collaborative innovation to become part of our collective DNA, we must accept the notion that the surest way to make progress and solve problems is to tap into the collective knowledge of the team. Networked enterprises are the future. No individual enterprise, no matter how large and talented, can afford to go it alone in today s highly competitive, globally integrated marketplace. 

Different models of networked innovation and offer a set of guidelines for companies to identify and prepare for the most promising collaborative innovation opportunities. As they emphasize, success also requires us to rethink the very nature of our relationships with innovation partners - what we need to control and what we... 

Open innovation networks. The alignment of programs to drive open innovation. In these programs, snppliers are incented to share new ideas and collaborate with research and development teams to work together to accelerate innovation. 

Worth mentioning is also the wider trans-European collaboration which exists in the area of reactor safety research through many bilateral and Community programmes which are described in the Joint Safety Research Index (FP-4 concerted action JSRI). These RTD programmes are also described in the homepage http //www-is.ike.uni-stuttgart.de/sinter developed by the R D Network on Safety-Related Innovative Nuclear Reactor Technology (FP-4 project SINTER). 

The Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) is Europe s largest public-private initiative aiming to accelerate the development of better and safer medicines [27]. IMI supports collaborative research projects with the building of networks comprised of industrial and academic experts in order to boost European pharmaceutical innovation. It is a joint undertaking between the European Union and the European pharmaceutical industry association EFPIA [28]. 

In Level 5, a business functional view appears and the constituents are involved in joint design and development, focused on what their collective database information shows as the trends, preferences, current popular innovations, and actual customer and consumer needs. Often the relationship leads to a truly collaborative endeavor where all constituents do what they do best and all participants bring their views of the market needs into play. The best concepts are used to create new prototypes or product offerings. Joint development of new equipment is likely to occur. Consumers are a key part of the design team and participation extends across the network. This phase of the effort could include joint investment in new capital assets. 

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