R&D collaboration for innovation offers a number of substantive benefits, such as the possibility for mutual knowledge sharing, combining complementary skills with partners, scale economies in research, as well as the sharing of costs and risks – R&D collaboration can contribute to different performance outcomes such as innovation.
What is R&D collaboration? We see several examples of Open Innovation. This is a growing trend of collaborative innovation examples of collaboration through Open Innovation, such as Procter and Gamble’s Connect and Develop program, IBM’s emerging business areas or Lego’s open innovation strategy. Companies regularly adapt their portfolio of R&D collaborations in order to secure future competitiveness. To ensure that R&D collaboration for innovation remains beneficial, firms need to adapt and renew their portfolio of partnerships on an ongoing basis
R&D collaboration facilitates the pooling of complementary skills, learning from partners as well as the sharing of risks and costs.
Studies show that increasing the share of collaborative R&D projects in total R&D projects is associated with a higher probability of product innovation and potentially a higher market success of new products.
There is a positive relationship between collaborative R&D and innovation performance. Studies have shown that collaborative R&D is associated with a higher probability of product innovation and with a higher market success of new products.
Firms do not only need in house capabilities and knowledge to compete, but also require having access to pools of external knowledge. Among the reasons to develop projects with external partners are lower cost, risk diversification, complementarities exploitation, time reduction in developments and earlier access to emerging technologies
SUMMARY
Open innovation involves collaboration. Companies and partners can pool complementary talent and resources to drive competitive advantage, increase profits, and most importantly create new products and lasting value for the partners
