Lehrstuhl für Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Technology

Bridging science and practice on innovation for collaboration at WHU Innovation Ecosystem Hub

Successful innovation increasingly requires building complex solutions, combining different technologies and market insights. Companies therefore need to engage in a wide variety of partnerships with suppliers, customers, start-ups, knowledge institutes and even competitors. However, building such innovation ecosystem triggers additional risks and challenges, which ask for novel management approaches.

The WHU Innovation Ecosystem Hub, an initiative of the Chair Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Technological Transformation at WHU Otto - Beisheim School of Management, aims to help companies in developing the necessary capabilities to successfully build, manage and profit from innovation ecosystems. Grounded in scientific research on collaborative innovation, the Chair of Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Technological Transformation has developed a set of analytical tools to help companies in mapping and benchmarking their innovation ecosystem. Moreover, different tools (e.g. Serious Lego Play, Business Wargaming, Innovation Challenges) have been created to actively engage with companies on the topic of innovation ecosystems. According to Prof. Dr. Dries Faems the core goal of the Innovation Ecosystem Hub is to further intensify collaboration between WHU and companies on the topic of collaboration for innovation: ‘At WHU, we have an international team of researchers, practitioners and students, who have extensive experience in researching and practicing ecosystem innovation. We hope that, with this initiative, we can develop a valuable platform to support companies in developing and nurturing their innovation collaboration capabilities.”

For more information, see https://www.innovationecosystemhub.com/.