INSPIRE addresses the full cycle of managing open innovation in SMEs from the analysis of its strategic challenges and the strategic scoping of business opportunities to concept development and its competitive analysis to commercialisation and follow-up work.
WHAT IS INSPIRE?
INSPIRE is a Coordination and Support Action funded by the European Commission under the Horizon 2020 work programme, aiming to understand and support open innovation management in Europe’s SMEs.
INSPIRE seeks to pool knowledge, expertise and interest around Open Innovation in SMEs, with a view to providing its target audience (in particular SMEs) with inspirational good practice cases, tools and methodologies to implement effective processes to use external knowledge and strategic collaborations in order to innovate.
SMEs are full of inspired ideas and creative approaches. However the shortage of resources often gets in the way, preventing them from capitalising on their creativity. The obvious way to address this challenge is the exploitation of external resources and the efficient deployment of partnerships; a critical condition for this is the successful management of these processes by aligning their decisions and their actions to the strategic priorities of the SME.
INSPIRE is set to understand and support the management of Open Innovation in SMEs. To fulfill this knowledge and practice gap, INSPIRE studies a critical mass of SME Open Innovation good practice cases and translates the findings into an Integrated Toolbox, a portal with resources appropriate for SMEs, their support agencies and other innovation practitioners in Europe.
The findings of INSPIRE are to be disseminated extensively to a wide audience (industry, policy, academia and civil society) to raise awareness and drive the formation of a living community which can share knowledge, experience and opportunities to promote better OI processes in SMEs.
INSPIRE for SMEs
What we offer you
The INSPIRE Integrated Toolbox is designed to support SMEs in managing Open Innovation that is the use of external knowledge and strategic collaborations in order to innovate. The Integrated Toolbox combines capacity-building modules, real-life cases, guidelines and indicators.
In particular, it consists of:
- Indicators to support decision making and action planning in SMEs
- Open Innovation training modules addressing both the internal innovation activities within the SME and the external innovation ones i.e. interaction with the Open innovation partner
- Trust building tools to strengthen relationships with Open Innovation partners
- Good practices and success stories to learn from peers’ Open Innovation ‘pathways’ for achieving success
- “Handbook for Open Innovation in SMEs” with hints and practical recommendations
Your involvement
SMEs have a central role within INSPIRE by helping to validate the toolbox through:
- Providing critical insights for the success of open innovation in SMEs
- Focus groups to provide feedback and input to the development of our tools
- Piloting the tools for SMEs
INSPIRE is set to understand and support the management of Open Innovation in SMEs. To fulfill this knowledge and practice gap, INSPIRE studies a critical mass of SME Open Innovation good practice cases and translates the findings into an Integrated Toolbox, a portal with resources appropriate for SMEs, their support agencies and other innovation practitioners in Europe.
The findings of INSPIRE are to be disseminated extensively to a wide audience (industry, policy, academia and civil society) to raise awareness and drive the formation of a living community which can share knowledge, experience and opportunities to promote better OI processes in SMEs.
INSPIRE for Practitioners
What we offer you
Open Innovation intermediaries are an essential element for boosting Open Innovation processes among SMEs who have limited resources for exploring all Open Innovation opportunities and identify the best ones. SME Intermediaries are also expected to help critically SMEs to manage the Open Innovation process and its challenges (e.g. IPR). INSPIRE aims to develop a series of indicators and a range of modules and tools to support SMEs in their Open Innovation ‘journey’.
INSPIRE provides tools for supporting SMEs to successfully develop and carry out Open Innovation projects, including:
- Training modules developed for all different phases of the Open Innovation process
- Real-life good practice cases of SMEs with a unique instructional value for practitioners and the SMEs they work with
- “Handbook for Open Innovation in SMEs” that you can use and modify with your own logo
These outcomes can be used by;
- SME Support Agencies
- Coaches and mentors working with SMEs
- Consultants working for private companies or public organisations
Your involvement
You can contribute to our project by taking part in:
- An expert survey to validate the analysis findings
- Innovation support engagement workshops which focus on the Open Innovation Toolbox and best practice cases
- Training for OI coaches which consists of training and good practice cases with a view to certification
Your contributions to relevant issues via our discussion groups (on LinkedIn and Facebook) is more than welcome!
Inspire for Academics
What we offer you
Four groups of academics from leading Universities in Europe are involved in the INSPIRE project. Our plan is to create a vibrant community of academics who can share insights, opinions and theoretical perspectives for advancing research on the theme of Open Innovation in SMEs, including its management, its support and the right framework conditions.
INSPIRE work aims to advance understanding of the critical issues affecting Open Innovation success in SMEs. The identification of 120 good practice cases from all regions of Europe and their analysis through a high-standard qualitative analysis method will help this objective. Moreover the academic teams are in charge of deploying 3 clusters of indicators for assessing:
- the SME’s Open Innovation capability via assessing previous experience and accumulated knowhow;
- the SMEs ability to manage all the required activities for collaborative ventures and partnerships;
- the SMEs’ aptitude strength to commercialize and exploit the outcome of Open Innovation activities.
Academics can use our identified cases to support their academic lectures and other training activities. More than 300 cases of SMEs pursuing Open Innovation have been identified and developed by the INSPIRE team, a unique resource for training and teaching.
Your involvement
A number of academics outside our team have already registered their interest in sharing the methods and the outcomes of the research carried out in the INSPIRE project. If you are interested on the activities of the project, for instance wishing to contribute more cases in our web-based portal, please contact us and somebody from the project will get in touch with you. Your contribution to research issues via our discussion groups (on LinkedIn and Facebook) will be really appreciated!
- Academics to express general interest in research activities or outcome
- Academics to get access to the academic publications coing out of the project
- Academics wishing to contribute more cases to our web-based platform
The INSPIRE project and its consortium are the owners and sole responsible for the contents of this website. It does not represent the opinion of the Community and the Community is not responsible for any use that might be made of information contained on this site. INSPIRE project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 691440 – INSPIRE.
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