Centre for Technology Management

Innovation management

Overview

Innovation management is widely recognised as a key part of many firms’ strategic thinking and management efforts. It has become an area with rapidly growing interest from academia and industry. With a focus on technological innovation, our research aims to develop improved understanding of innovation and the associated management issues. We aim to provide support to those managing innovation through practical engagement of firms in research.

Recent and ongoing projects

• Breakthrough innovation
  This project investigated ways in which firms can improve their capacity to generate breakthrough innovations
• Innovation management - a tool set for SMEs
  This work aims to combine the outputs of past research in a accessible workshop based tool set for smaller companies who wish to develop their innovation skills.
• Open innovation
  Our research in this area is focused on helping companies understand the opportunities and challenges of open innovation – for example, the role of intermediaries and how small and large firms can collaborate effectively.
• Innovation Productivity Grand Challenge
  This collaborative research programme explored the implications of the changing 21stcentury context of networked, global and increasingly open innovation – a world in which knowledge flows become as important as knowledge creation.
• Emerging Industries Programme
  Mapping techniques have been used to identify the patterns, enablers and barriers associated with industrial emergence, leading a set of new methods for capturing learning from the past, and supporting strategic planning for early stage technology ventures,
• Marketing Technology
  Having a great technology is not enough for successful innovation – it is also crucial to be able to market and sell the benefits. This project explored these issues, leading to publication of supporting process guide.
• Business Appraisal of Technology Potentials
  'What is this technology worth?' is a perennial question faced by technology managers. Trying to answer it involves grappling with some fundamental challenges.
• Early stage technology acquisition and protection
  Integrating critical factors associated with the acquisition of early stage technologies into a decision support tool.

PhD research in Innovation Management

• Early stage new product and service development in the healthcare industry
  This research focuses on the management of early stage new product development in Healthcare industry, exploring the meaning of new product in the context of healthcare service delivery, the shifting business model in the industry, and the increasing sophistication of the software embedded in medical equipment. (Man Hang Yip)
• Dealing with the fuzzy front end
  The ways in which organisations capture and pursue valuable ideas is being explored, with a particular focus on the early ‘fuzzy front end’ phase of innovation. (Xiyang (Daniel) He)

Past PhD research in Innovation Management