Absorptive capacity for open innovation

Developing absorptive capacity for midstream science in open innovation contexts.

There is a rapidly growing focus on open innovation, particularly how this occurs in collaborations between science researchers and external stakeholders (e.g., industry). One of Aotearoa—New Zealand’s National Science Challenges, Science for Technological Innovation (SfTI), is an example of large-scale collaboration. For SfTI, innovation is crucial because of its goal to improve Aotearoa—New Zealand’s capacity to use physical sciences and engineering to enhance economic growth. It is because of this goal that SfTI is committed to developing a greater understanding of processes for collaborative innovation. This is particularly important for Vision Mātauranga, a science policy framework that prioritises Māori knowledge, resources, and people. SfTI wants to gain a better understanding of how collaborative innovation can occur in a cross-cultural context.

Focusing on "stretchy science"

Maintaining the relationships between science researchers and external stakeholders does not come without its challenges. In their research, Urs Daellenbach, Sally Davenport, and Katarina Ruckstuhl identify how this could be done more effectively. They focus on mid-stream stretch science. Stretch science is research that offers a wide range of applications that will be innovative 10 to 15 years into the future and mid-stream science is a phase where research is developing novel scientific results but before these have become products or services. Collaboration between researchers and external stakeholders at this phase can be challenging because the potential outcomes of the research are often unclear.

Leveraging absorptive capacity

To understand these challenges, the researchers consider the concept of absorptive capacity. Absorptive capacity is an organisation’s ability to recognise the value of new and external information, integrate it, and commercialise it. This concept is related to collaborative innovation because of the need for people to engage with external organisations. Interestingly, research on absorptive capacity has primarily focused on an organisation’s ability to learn from external knowledge sources. Thinking about the absorptive capacity of individual researchers, though, could develop some new insights for when and why stretch science is commercialised, especially within Aotearoa—New Zealand.

Emphasising capacity development

The ability of science researchers to engage with external stakeholders is often ignored because it may not be viewed as part of the traditional academic role. More specifically, different kinds of capacities are needed so that researchers can engage effectively with external stakeholders.

Technical capacity is likely the most expected capacity of researchers and is often indicated by the researcher’s status and reputation. Human capacity is the entrepreneurial skills to be willing and able to identify knowledge gaps, needs, or opportunities of the external stakeholder, as well as develop ideas to fill these. Relational capacity is the ability to develop and sustain relationships with external stakeholders to facilitate knowledge sharing in both directions. Technical capacity has traditionally played a significant role in collaborative projects. However, SfTI proposed that human and relational capacity should be equally emphasised.

SfTI invests in and provides capacity development for all members of the project focused on human and relational capacity rather than technical capacity. This is to increase the ability of science researchers to engage with external stakeholders and promote open innovation.

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