From Research to Innovation: Exploring the Translation Journey with OpenInnoTrain

The importance of innovation through university-industry cooperation has rarely been more acute than it is today. Over the last 18 months of COVID-19 pandemic, we have experienced unprecedented circumstances in our lifetime that have demonstrated the critical role of knowledge creation and transmission across industries and disciplines. Identifying, developing and scaling-up breakthrough technologies, and converting them into incremental, radical or disruptive innovations that are widely accepted by, and available to beneficiaries, users, customers and communities is of paramount importance. However, turning research outputs into novelties for the benefits of wider society seldom occurs spontaneously. Numerous mechanisms – such as stakeholder engagement and co-creation processes – can assist in creating framework conditions to foster the development and adoption of novelties that address current and future societal needs. The European funded OpenInnoTrain project precisely aims to explore those mechanisms, across four specific contemporary settings, so to as equip researchers and practitioners with actionable knowledge to support their research and innovation journeys. As we cross the 2-year mark of the project, the intent of this book is to provide glimpses on OpenInnoTrain's current reflections and achievements with a variety of illustrations featuring activities across the consortium and beyond.