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.

 

Past PhD research in Innovation Management

 

Patent roadmaps to support forecasting and strategic decision-making 

 

Forecasting the development and potential success of emerging technologies is important to decision makers. It enables them to be proactively choosing suitable strategies and avoid possible negative impacts, with potential disastrous consequences. Both patent forecasting and roadmapping have been used for technology forecasting to guarantee larger profits and occupy dominant positions first. This research aims to combine both patent analytics and roadmapping for the purpose of technology forecasting for supporting strategic decision making. (Tianyi Wang)

 

Aligning IP strategy with the business model

 

This research intends to explore the impact of the business model on IP strategy and interrelations between the two aspects, i.e. how to align IP strategy with the business model to exploit IP’s value. The objective of the research is to first improve the understanding of how business models influence firms’ IP strategy, and further to improve the approach for firms to developing their IP strategy and aligning it with their business model to exploit IP’s business value. (Mingjin Guo)

 

A structured mapping approach for understanding the dynamics of new technology-based venture emergence

 

This research aims to develop a theoretically underpinned structured mapping approach for understanding the dynamics of new technology-based venture emergence. This will be achieved by exploring the integration opportunities between roadmapping and innovation system functions at the firm level. (Yuta Hirose)

 

Balancing the innovation portfolio

 

This PhD study explores the concept of a balanced innovation portfolio. The context of balance in a portfolio can vary across firms with respect to various factors such as strategy and competition. The aim is to understand the challenges faced by firms in managing innovation portfolios and develop a portfolio balancing approach considering the dynamic nature in a portfolio. (Nitish Gupta)

 

EPSRC - The Future of Patent Analytics: A Foresight Study of Breakthrough-enabling Technologies

 

In a connected world, where successful technological development depends increasingly on collaboration of different partners, effectively utilizing patent data has huge, yet unexploited potential. Given suitable analytics solutions, the data can be used for regular decision making on a strategic level in all kind of organizations, small or large, private or public, young or old. With the digitization of patent data since the BACON project in 1984 and gradual improvements of analytics over the last decades, patent data has become increasingly accessible for a wider audience. While few providers of patent analytics solutions have started to adapt novel technologies, such as artificial intelligence, the major industry players face inertia due to technological legacy problems being locked-in to unsuitable data architectures. We believe, helping the industry to explore and understand the potential of novel technologies will trigger further investments and boost the development of new solutions enabling previously untapped use cases, for instance, to connect research partners more effectively. Involving key stakeholders, such as technical experts, lead users of patent analytics solutions, patent specialists and decision makers, the project will conduct a foresight study to develop a technology roadmap for the next 10 years of patent analytics. (Leo Aristodemou)

 

Partnerships of automotive manufacturers in Silicon Valley for the development of the electric vehicle ecosystem

 

Since 1995, when Daimler was the first automotive manufacturer to establish a small innovation office in Silicon Valley, a number of manufacturers, such as VW, BMW, GM, Ford, Toyota, and others, have followed suit. Among other aims, these technology offices are used to form local partnerships and develop innovative technologies, such as electric vehicles. I am researching the partnerships the technology offices form with local players, in order to address various dimensions of the EV ecosystem. I will research how the open innovation activities have changed over time, as underlying technologies in the EV ecosystem have matured, as well as how the technology offices fit into the overall business. (Martha Geiger)

 

Towards a solution to new technology-based firm equity-based funding issues at different stages of firm development

 

Open Innovation practices in small- and medium-sized enterprises have been largely ignored by previous literature on the topic. This PhD study focuses on the role of spatial economics on the implementation of Open Innovation practices in high-tech SMEs. An extensive literature review as well as in-depth case studies of high-tech SMEs located in the Cambridge technopole cluster feed into the development of a framework of OI practices in SMEs and hopefully lead to a better understanding of the impact of location specific variables on Open Innovation. (Bingqing Zhao)

 

Scalability and effects of additive manufacturing technologies in R&D and production

This research seeks to explore the scalability and effects of additive manufacturing technologies on R&D and production. (Dominik Deradjat)

 

The role of location in open innovation implementation

This research looks at the implementation process of open innovation strategies in UK high-tech small and medium-sized enterprises. More specifically, it tries to analyse the impact of three location factors (absolute geographic location, relative proximity and cognitive proximity) on open innovation strategies in these firms. (David Weiss)

 

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)

 

How factors such as innovation strategy and product complexity may impact on configuration and evolution of the front-end of innovation process in companies

The early phases of the innovation process, also known as the fuzzy front-end, have been a challenge for every business that intends to compete through product innovation. Several studies have explored the front-end, with progresses regarding description of its features, activities, barriers, best practices, tools, methods, etc. Nevertheless, companies still face problems in managing it effectively. (Maicon Oliveira)

 

Developing a framework for depicting the radical innovation process in established firms

The research outcome consists of the stabilised framework Version 4.0 which defines and depicts the radical innovation process, and subsidiary findings which include the motivations to pursue radical innovation, the use of independent organisations to manage radical innovation and the key enablers in the process. (Dr Lan Tao)

 

The role of in-house demonstration to support innovation

This research has explored the role of demonstration is used within a large product-based firm to support the communication and adoption of technologies throughout the innovation process. (Dr David Bradshaw)

 

Regenerating breakthrough product innovation in dynamic environments

A capabilities perspective (Scott Wilson)

 

Commercialisation of advanced material innovations

Commercialisation of new technologies from university origins, specifically advanced material innovations. (Dr Sarah Lubik)

 

The entrepreneurial dilemma

This research explores how entrepreneurs develop competitiveness advantage in new markets and emergent industries. Employing a new perspective which considers uncertainty as a source of value, this research investigates how entrepreneurial competitiveness advantage might depend on the choice of strategies to cope with complex and controversial dilemmas associated with new venture development.  This research builds on case studies in selected new market areas such as: cancer treatment, new biomass, bio plastics and alternative energy technologies. (Leonardo Augusto, Visitor to CTM)

 

The Interaction of Open Innovation and Social Media

This project focuses on the impact of social media on Open Innovation. The use of social media has become the most common way nowadays for people to connect and share information everywhere. This research explores the benefits of using social media in facilitating open innovation with a focus on the potential application to the SMEs. (Yi-Wen Yang, Visitor to CTM)

 

Innovation management by Global Health Entrepreneurs

This research looks at how global health entrepreneurs implement and sustain business models covering discovery, development and delivery of global health innovations. (Julia Fan Li)

 

Enabling the successful scale up of innovative processing technologies

The development of innovative processing technologies is becoming increasingly important in the chemical industry. Companies with the ability to overcome the challenges that are typically faced in scaling up new processes from the laboratory to commercial production will have an advantage in achieving competitive operations in shorter timeframes. This development of innovative processing technologies is being largely driven by the quest for more environmentally sustainable operations. Understanding enablers of the successful scale up of chemical processes is expected to provide valuable lessons learned for closely related, yet more nascent industrial biotechnology processes.

Initial research on the enablers of successful scale up in the process industries has been carried out using data from interviews that were conducted with members from five multi-national companies. The initial research indicated that a number of problems are encountered during scale up and suggested that particular types of skills and knowledge are important in overcoming these problems.  Further research is planned and this research will result in process maps that describe the practices associated with the successful scale up of processing technologies. Tools for ensuring the technical, organisational and business skills and knowledge required for successfully scaling up process technologies will be developed. (Manjusha Thorpe)

 

Innovation Communication. The Role of Communication in the Development of Technology Clusters. The Case of Cambridge UK

This PhD thesis focuses on innovation communication. The role of communication in the development of clusters will be explored. Specifically, this research looks at journalism and corporate communication in the Cambridge Technology Cluster UK. (Bettina Blasini)

 

The knowledge sharing mechanism in open source software community

This research explores the mechanism of open source software community and it's significance to improve software innovation performance and knowledge flow in the virtual community. (Michelle CHEN Xiaohong, visitor to CTM)

 

The influence of the characteristics of CEO's on open innovation in the SME's

This PhD thesis aims to reveal how CEO characteristics can be related with open innovation in the SME's. (Joonmo Ahn)