The Early Phases of Innovation: Opportunities and Challenges in Public-Private Partnership

Abstract

Governments today recognize the need to promote innovations and fund innovative projects, particularly those where public sector institutions such as universities cooperate with specialized R&D institutions. This article discusses how cooperation between industry, academia and government may be utilized in the early phases of innovation to increase the innovative capability of firms in a given region or sector. It presents findings of two recent empirical surveys carried out at our institute. The focus of attention is the needs of small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) which, on account of resource constraints, are usually more dependent on cooperation than big firms.

Keywords: Innovation, Innovation Process, Fuzzy Front-End, Innovation Coalition