Open innovation laboratory for rapid realisation of sensing, smart and sustainable products: motives, concepts and uses in higher education

Abstract

Open Innovation is not a new concept and it is been actively used by different entities to cope with new challenges posed by the evolving society in business, science and education. However, for this last one seems to be poor documentation about how higher education institutions are dealing with it. It is evident that universities are applying concepts like Open Innovation Laboratories, however it is not clear the methodologies or resources they are using. Tecnologico de Monterrey recently created its own laboratory and in this article we present the motives, concepts and uses of it in the context of higher education. Different approaches are made, from the development of core competences concepts to the physical and virtual tools used in the lab. Two study cases are briefly presented in order to illuminate how external actors are collaborating with internal actors in an Open Innovation process.