Innovation support for academia -
collaboration with external stakeholders
Your guide to building partnerships in
startup support
EURAXESS Startup hub digital toolkit
Innovation support for academia - collaboration with external stakeholders
One startup support infrastructure cannot work in isolation; it is only a single part of the large national or regional startup ecosystems, comprised of the different stakeholders.
Learn about the best practices in joining forces with those external stakeholders to provide the best service to your sci entrepreneurs.
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Startup ecosystem
Building a complex support infrastructure such as the one required for the effective and efficient support of innovation activities is an inherently collaborative endeavour. The different capacities and capabilities can be drawn from a vast variety of organizations, initiatives, teams and individuals to provide very specific, targeted solutions to the needs of startup entrepreneurs. There are different concepts of startup ecosystems, which differ in scope, structure, number of stakeholders, interconnectedness of elements, conditions and other elements that build a startup ecosystem [read more].
Ecosystems can be classified into three broad categories [read more][and more]:
- Nascent Ecosystem. There are a limited number of startups, most of which are in very early or early stages. The community of entrepreneurs is forming and has a low density of connections with few clusters, if any. In these ecosystems, founders lack business experience, mentors are scarce and inexperienced, and there are few generations of entrepreneurs (most entrepreneurs are in their first or second venture), there are few or no startup exits or, if there are any, they are outliers.
- Advancing Ecosystem. These ecosystems have an increased number of startups, with most in the early stages but with increasing numbers of scaleups. The community of entrepreneurs has several clusters and a high density, and there are a handful of success startup exits. There is still a lack of business acumen among entrepreneurs but there is a growing number of serial entrepreneurs and the ecosystem has more than three generations of startups. There is an increasing number of international connections and mentors with local startup experience.
- Mature Ecosystem. These ecosystems have a large number of startups in all stages (for example, growing, scaling up, exits) and the ecosystem is highly interconnected. The majority of entrepreneurs have business acumen and previous relevant business experience. There are several generations of startups with multiple serial entrepreneurs and successful exits. Mentors are abundant, they have solid practical experience, and there is a solid base of angel investors. The ecosystem is an international hub itself and attracts international talent.
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Open innovation model
The innovation process is most often a closed game - industries use these processes to generate new knowledge, engineer new products and services, and improve their business processes, with the aim to achieve business results, typically by gaining a competitive market position. Being the most valuable asset, knowledge is protected - companies pursue innovation by using exclusively internal resources. Today, such a model is very difficult to sustain. First, as technology develops very fast, companies are not capable of continuously embracing new data, methods and approaches and thus sustaining the top innovation performance. Second, with limited resources, the pace of innovation is slow. Finally, it often happens that companies have to “reinvent the wheel” at early stages in order to confirm or replicate the latest scientific breakthroughs.
Open innovation is a business management model for innovation that assumes collaboration with people and organisations outside the company.
It is a viable method when the innovation is in the scientific domain which is characterised by the steep development curve and a major hype (for example, Artificial Intelligence). Internal innovation still remains and it focuses on the creation of knowledge that is otherwise non-existing or not accessible. Open innovation is typically a good choice in the initial stages of product or service development - it helps in better understanding the involved challenges and thus helps internal teams to focus on key points. One example of implementation of the open innovation model is crowd-sourcing.
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External stakeholders
Those stakeholders include but they are not restricted to incubators and accelerators, scientific technology parks, networks and associations, projects, clusters, funding organizations and schemes, angel investors, national/regional innovation agencies, co-working spaces, alumni networks, chambers of commerce and industry, non-governmental organizations, digital innovation hubs, public organization initiatives and different research supporting organizations and initiatives.
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Examples of good practices
Public-private partnerships for ambitious projects supporting startups
EuraTechnologies (Lille, France) is a public-private partnership backed by the municipality of Lille. Their programme - Euratech Venture, is a subsidiary that has around 40 million dollars for subsidising entrepreneurs in their effort to make an MVP (minimal viable product) during 80 days of the incubation period. Over the past 10 years, they have “produced” an average of 100 startups per year.
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Examples of good practices
Join a network to extend your offer to internationalising the science, technology and innovation created at your organisation
Networks and forums are tools for connectivity, exchange of knowledge, building partnership and transfer of know-how, which are crucial for any researcher. One of such networks is the European Network of Research and Innovation Centres and Hubs – ENRICH, supported and promoted by the European Commission.
ENRICH is a global network of centres and hubs that promotes the internationalisation of European science, technology, and innovation. The ENRICH network offers services to connect European research, technology, and business organisations with global frontrunner innovation markets such as Brazil, China, the US, India, and now Africa.
Through different services ENRICH allows participants to get a complete overview of how to receive support as young European researchers. In this way, with the support of mentors and specialists coming from big successful companies and well-ranked universities that have good connections with the labour market, students, entrepreneurs, and researchers are able to improve the skills that will guide them on how to take the necessary steps to make their research more international.
Through the organisation of workshops, webinars or conferences, the ENRICH network provides participants with the opportunity to expand connectivity with the best-known investors, establish new relations, enlarge their knowledge and discover the real market process. In addition, the network disseminates information and knowledge via online tools that are very useful and are open to everyone. ENRICH enables building networks with the right partners and experts overseas.
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Examples of good practices
Provide your startups with access to high performing research infrastructures
The European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures-ESFRI was established in 2002, with a mandate from the EU Council to support a coherent and strategy-led approach to policy-making on research infrastructures in Europe, and to facilitate multilateral initiatives leading to the better use and development of research infrastructures, at the EU and international level.
ESFRI has enabled the development of research infrastructure through the following: forum meetings (only for ESFRI delegates); workshops, which enable the exchange of knowledge with the aim to promote mutual learning and identify best practices, facilitating their adoption among managers, research infrastructures and stakeholder networks; free access to various events, as well as through a library that offers an enormous number of documents, annual reports, policy docs, working groups thematic reports, exchange of experience (EoE) reports and roadmap/procedural documents.
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Examples of good practices
Collaboration between TTC matters
The Israel Tech Transfer Organisation: (ITTN) serves as the umbrella organisation for Israel’s technology transfer companies. These companies are affiliated with the country’s world-renowned universities and research institutions. Currently, the 15 partnering organisations comprise the shareholders. ITTN intends to add more members from Israel’s government-owned medical centres and research institutions. ITTN is a private non-profit organisation.
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Examples of good practices
Technological Innovation Labs - open innovation model in practice
Technological Innovation Labs programme, under the Israel Innovation Authority, is intended for entrepreneurs in the preliminary stages of a project, who need unique infrastructures and expertise to prove the feasibility of a technological idea. The programme is also intended for corporations interested in collaborating with Israeli startups. The assistance to entrepreneurs is provided through innovation labs operated by the industry’s leading corporations via an open innovation model. The programme enables startups to access unique technological infrastructures, market insights, and unique channels of marketing and expertise to which they currently lack access, with the aim of proving feasibility on the way to transforming a technological idea into a commercial product. The programme provides a grant of up to 85% of the approved budget, up to a maximum grant of NIS 1 million for up to a year. A grant of up to 50% of the approved budget, up to a maximum sum of NIS 1 million will be awarded for a further period of 1 year.
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Examples of good practices
Sourcing challenges from the industry - reverse innovation model
The Israel Innovation Authority approaches innovation by understanding the challenge first, and then working backward to source solutions. This is the reverse innovation model. For example, established corporations are invited to pitch their challenges to start-ups. This promotes the formation of joint ventures (sometimes between competing firms) to address them.
One example is the Floor, a fintech accelerator founded jointly by international banks including HSBC, Deutsche Bank, RBS and Santander. The Floor uses the reverse innovation model to source challenges from the banks and then searches the market for relevant startups, incubating and supporting those working on potential solutions. They speak of providing “helpful money”, where financing and mentoring go hand-in-hand. More European accelerators could be set up in this way to source solutions, focusing earlier on the possible applications for the products of selected startups.
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Examples of good practices
Enrolling in Corporate Social Responsibility programmes
In the close-knit world of Israeli tech, even global companies give back. The new Amazon Web Services headquarters in Tel Aviv has an entire floor available to the public for organising community events, while Intel—the largest employer in Israel—actively supports diversity programmes.
As an academic organisation that actively contributes to entrepreneurial careers, partnering with industries in relevant Corporate Social Responsibility programmes puts you in a multiplier position - you can act as a hub to reach out to researchers to ensure the most effective use of CSR budgets.
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Examples of good practices
Entrepreneurship support infrastructures prevent “brain drain”
In the city of Berkeley in California, US, the Berkeley startup cluster was launched to counter the "brain drain" effect that emerged when young entrepreneurs and scientists graduated from UC Berkeley and Laurence National Lab, moved on and eventually founded their own companies in other communities. In addition to these two institutions, the cluster is a joint effort of the City of Berkeley, the Downtown Berkeley Association and the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce. The Berkeley Startup Cluster (BSC) was formed to help make Berkeley more attractive to startups who want to locate there and thus help the local economy to benefit from the appropriate jobs, creativity and investments that follow.
The BSC exists as a “virtual incubator” dedicated to promoting the success of a range of high-tech startups that remain in the downtown Berkeley community. It has the mission to be a more vibrant, accessible and equitable place for startups to launch and grow. The main goal is to provide local innovators with information about resources and opportunities, develop local infrastructure to meet the needs of the innovation sector, Increase innovation sector diversity and community engagement and improve the number and quality of events and networks for Berkeley entrepreneurs.
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Examples of good practices
Collaboration with the NGO sector can provide a powerful testbed for ideas that could change the world
Humanitarian Hackathon is a 2-day event organised by the World Food Programme (WFP) that aims to solve varying problems using new tech solutions. During these 2 days, other NGOs, academia representatives, private sector companies and newly emerging startups will try to present disruptive solutions to battle presented problems. Building prototypes and launching new projects always happen during and after the event has ended. The presence of investing groups offers a chance for some solutions and projects to be financed and promoted to the wider public.
Solferino Academy is an organisation that works with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) in an effort to develop new approaches and innovative technologies, which could solve problems that concern the global population (health issues, disasters…) and overall transforming approaches to humanitarian issues. There are multiple success stories of Solferino Academy helping different organisations and startups, that can be seen on this link.
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