Innovation prizes have been traditionally offered by governments for technological breakthroughs, solving major social challenges, or advancing technologies. However, over the last decade they have increasingly become effective tools for large companies to support inbound Open Innovation. Large companies also utilize prizes to identify talents and investment opportunities, or find cheaper alternatives to in-house research and development. Along with prizes, over the past 10 years many open innovation platforms raised on the market, connecting companies pursuing innovation with other companies, free-lancers, researchers, as well as retired professionals capable and willing to contribute. These intermediaries proved to be very effective not only in matching “seekers” with “solvers”, but also in effectively managing the first steps of the entire innovation processes.
However, according to extant research, SMEs can experience barriers in benefiting from innovation prizes and intermediary platforms, mainly due to lack of knowledge and a lack of know-how, R&D structure, costs and language barriers. Goal of project INNOCHALLENGE has been to design a new type of open innovation support initiative pivoted on the tenets and working model of prizes and open innovation platforms, though more accessible to SMEs (Innovation Challenges), and more feasible for innovation agencies. The major result of the project was to deliver an actionable Guide intended to support innovation agencies in designing Innovation Challenges. Core to the Guide is the “Innovation Challenge Design Canvas”: a printable one-page practical tool to understand and define all aspects of an Innovation Challenge. The Guide also features a collection of already existing and implemented Innovation Challenges, ran in Europe in the partnering countries. The Guide was crafted in cooperation with a graphic design agency, this way making it more appealing and user friendly.
Under that light, we expect that the diffusion of the Guide among European innovation agencies will result in the activation of more effective open innovation support programs dedicated to SMEs. In the medium term, this will result in an improved innovation capacity from the SME that will benefit from such programs. In the long run, that will result in SMEs generating new or improved products and services, along with new highly qualified jobs.
