Introduction
Open Innovation is Booming
Open innovation means making use of ideas from outside your own organisation.
It means accepting that ‘not all the smart people work for you’. However, it does not mean delegating responsibility for innovation or being passive in the face of change. On the contrary, those firms which have embraced open innovation effectively have well-considered internal and external activities and mechanisms that are specifically intended to facilitate innovative collaboration with other organisations, including innovative startups.
This report, produced by Mind the Bridge (MTB) and Nesta as part of the Startup Europe Partnership project, provides an overview of some of these activities.
It outlines how Europe’s ‘Corporate Startup Stars’ – the firms judged to be the best in Europe at working with startups – approach open innovation and startup collaboration. It also touches upon trends that we have observed in their open innovation activities, such as a shift in focus from very early stage startups to later stage ones (scaleups) and the need to deploy more resources for supporting corporate divisions and business units in working with startups.
The Corporate Startup Stars awards are intended to recognise and celebrate open innovation with startups, and inspire others to follow suit. In the same way, we hope that this report will not only celebrate the grood practices that we observe, but encourage other firms to think about their own innovation activities.
Alberto Onetti, Chairman, Mind the Bridge
Christopher Haley, Head of New Technology & Startup Research, Nesta
