Detecting innovation opportunities: the development of an online innovation tool and process for university - business engagement

This paper describes work conducted for the i10 organization (www.i10.org.uk); a collaboration of universities in the East of England. It describes the development of a proactive process to facilitate engagement between universities and manufacturing SMEs and the subsequent tools and proficiencies developed by the universities involved for doing this. The outcomes are of value to other universities tasked with engaging with business and those interested in the development and usefulness of on-line tools. It is also of interest to any institution developing tools for identifying innovation opportunities; innovation benchmarking and company profiling.