TY - JOUR T1 - University-SME Collaboration and Open Innovation: Intellectual-Property Management Tools and the Roles of Intermediaries JF - Technology Innovation Management Review Y1 - 2013 A1 - Isabelle Deschamps A1 - Maria G. Macedo A1 - Christian Eve-Levesque KW - intellectual property KW - intermediaries KW - IP management KW - Open innovation KW - technology transfer KW - university-enterprise collaboration KW - university-SME collaboration AB - In 2009, the Conseil de la science et de la technologie du Québec (CST) made 13 recommendations to the Government of Quebec in order to shift innovative actors towards open-innovation practices adapted to the province's context: diversified economic sectors, a majority of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), public universities, etc. Among these recommendations are: i) to set up flexible mechanisms to promote research collaboration between public-private sectors such as universities and SMEs, and ii) to optimize intermediation bodies’ contribution to establish open-innovation practices. Furthermore, the lack of adequate understanding and tools for the management of intellectual property (IP) was identified as a major inhibitor of open-innovation practices, to which actors should pay specific attention. In this article, we present results and recommendations from a field study focused on two groups of actors: i) companies involved in collaborative innovation and ii) intermediary agents enabling innovation and technology transfer. Our first goal was to shed some light on factors that facilitate open innovation through improved university-enterprise collaborations and, more importantly, that attempt to overcome the irritants related to IP management. Our second goal was to analyze the roles of diverse intermediaries in the fostering of successful collaborations between universities and SMEs. Our study yielded three findings: i) SMEs do not care about understanding and improving their capabilities about IP and are not equipped with adequate tools and best practices for managing IP and for managing the overall collaborative mechanisms in general; ii) this gap in preparation for open innovation is persistent, since even the intermediaries, whose role is to guide SMEs in university-enterprise collaborations, suffer themselves from the lack of appropriate IP transfer and sharing tools, and do not perceive the need to offer better support in this regard; and iii) overall, current IP-transfer and collaboration-management tools are not sophisticated enough to provide appropriate support for the implementation of open innovation, by which we mean more open and collaborative innovation in the context of university-enterprise collaborations. PB - Talent First Network CY - Ottawa VL - 3 UR - http://timreview.ca/article/668 IS - 3 U1 - École de technologie supérieure Isabelle Deschamps is Professor and founder of graduate programs in Innovation Management at École de technologie supérieure in Montreal, Canada. A professional engineer, she has been active for 30 years as a consultant, trainer, investor, and researcher in the fields of collaborative technological innovation. She has been advisor and manager in governmental agencies, incubators, transfer centres, and clusters in industries such as aluminum, environment, information technologies, nanotechnologies, and life science. Directly active for more than 15 years in the Quebec innovation ecosystem, she coached and financed startups and university spin-offs as Vice-President of Inno-centre, a technological incubator and as Partner of Capimont Technologies, a private venture capital group. Since 2007, she has been involved in fast-growing high-tech SMEs for the management of innovation and university-enterprise collaborations. She holds an MBA from HEC-Montréal and a DBA in Innovation Management from Harvard University. U2 - École de technologie supérieure / SePSI-UQAM Maria Macedo is a Technology Transfer Officer at Service des partenariats et soutien à l'innovation (SePSI-UQAM), in Montreal, Canada, where she manages partnership research projects and university intellectual property. In this position, she creates a link between top university research and the unmet needs of industry, thereby providing the university's members with a real opportunity to gain any commercial benefits arising from their research. Maria has over 10 years of experience in innovation management and strategic planning. In recent years, she has conducted industry studies that identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to the industry’s development and innovation. Maria completed her undergraduate studies at Universidad Nacional Autonoma de México (UNAM) in Food Chemistry and she holds an MSc and a PhD in Food Sciences from Laval University in Québec City as well as a MBA from HEC Montréal. She is finalizing an MSc in management of innovation at École de technologie supérieure in Montreal. U3 - École de technologie supérieure Christian Eve-Levesque is a young professional who cumulates experience in product development, technology transfer, and production engineering in medical and robotic sectors. He holds a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering and a Masters Degree in Innovation Management from École de technologie supérieure in Montreal, Canada. He is active in university-enterprise collaboration projects as well as in enterprise-enterprise collaboration projects. Christian also teaches business strategy for graduate programs in Innovation Management at École de technologie supérieure. ER -