The Center for Business Innovation a platform

Purpose and goal

The overall aim with CBI (2007-2016) has been to contribute to knowledge development in the field of innovation management and by means of our company-close research. Our ambitions can be summarized as: (1) to contribute to innovation research; (2) to be an arena for developing and establishing new forms for cooperation between companies and academia, in particular by means of the design of our research projects and our choice of relevant research topics. This project constitutes the final phase of CBI and has a limited scope. All goals are considered being fulfilled.

Expected results and effects

On the whole, CBI has meant knowledge development in a number of areas within innovation management and could be expressed in terms of (1) Academic knowledge (publications) and (2) impact in the organizations and on the actors concerned. The impact may be divided into direct impact in the firms we have cooperated with and indirect and long-term (students from our teaching at Chalmers and attention and active participation in the debate in society). This two-year final project of CBI has contributed to that.

Planned approach and implementation

Our point of departure has since 2007 been the real problems encountered by firms. CBI research is within the broad area of `innovation management´. Our research deals with the processes firms engage in to create their business offer and, thus, encompasses more than technological research and product development (R&D). We have worked with both large and small firms with their respective innovation challenges. A key characteristic of CBI is the notion of dual objectives, i.e. to create knowledge that is of value both to the academic community and simultaneously is relevant for practice.