In December 2025, in Paris, during the closed-door session of the 10th edition of the Corporate Startup Stars Award – organized by Mind the Bridge in partnership with the International Chamber of Commerce – we had the opportunity of engaging with heads of innovation from several of the world’s Top 100 most innovative corporations.

We asked five core questions:

How much?
How do you expect Open Innovation budgets to evolve in 2026? Up or down?

Where?
Which areas and tools of Open Innovation are gaining momentum?

Who?
How is the role of the Open Innovation executive evolving beyond “innovation” per se?

How?
Which KPIs are used to measure success and impact?

What?
What are the main priorities – and key challenges – looking ahead?

The session provided a valuable opportunity to exchange insights, assess which Open Innovation tools have proven effective in practice, and explore priorities and plans looking ahead.
In this brief report, we summarize the key outcomes of these discussions.