Unlocking systematic innovation: Assessing the impact of design methods in university-industry collaboration for open challenges

Abstract

Open innovation challenges connect companies and universities, while accelerating product development and achieving better market reach. Research has shown that these benefits are more consistent when the idea-generation process is based on proven methodologies within a sustainable business model.

Our study aims to measure the effectiveness of problem-solving methods in the development of value-added solutions for open innovation challenges, under the hypothesis that structured methods allow designing value-added solutions that can be transferred to the market.

To test it, we developed an experiment through two open innovation platforms, Agorize and Lions Up, using the challenges of two companies, Bayer and ENEL. A total of 187 students from two Chilean universities had to explore “how digital will Bayer be in 2032?” and design “solutions for the development of more efficient, livable and sustainable urban environments, building future Smart cities in Chile”, working with TRIZ, SCAMPER, and Design thinking.

The evaluation of the solutions considered three criteria, one from each company and an academic one. The teams that used TRIZ showed better results in both challenges, especially in the feasibility and transfer to the market possibilities. Design thinking had the lowest overall score, but improved significantly when used by more experienced students, showing the relevance of accumulated knowledge when working with intuitive methods.

Minor differences were identified among evaluation teams, which shows the importance of defining objective evaluation criteria. Finally, a relevant step is to investigate the reasons behind the lack of correlation between popularity and performance of design methods.