Speaker: Professor Martie-Louise Verreynne
Title: University-small business collaboration: Practical considerations and theoretical advancements
Date: Thursday, 29 August 2024
Time: 12:00pm – 2:00pm
Venue: Building 21, PAP Moran, G058, Seminar Room
Samira Nazar is the host of this visit
Abstract:
Small businesses play a vital role in innovation, job creation, and economic development. To achieve this, they often partner with universities and other organisations to expand their internal resources and capabilities and to scale their efforts. In this presentation, I will report on our research program conducted in partnership with SME Connect over the past five years, which investigates the motivations, barriers/enablers, processes, and outcomes of university-business innovation collaboration. To this end, the presentation draws on four industry reports, complemented by academic papers, to provide insights to research facilitators/managers and academics on the issues that small businesses face when collaborating with universities. It also shares our collaboration readiness index, which is now widely used by facilitators.
The discussion that follows explains how we structured our program to provide practical and academic benefits. Additionally, it presents an overarching conceptual framework for theorizing SME-university collaborations, organising the field into three paradigmatic logics: technology transfer, knowledge co-development, and value co-creation. Finally, it concludes by suggesting ways to design university-industry collaboration for the public good. This will involve rethinking existing approaches that rely mainly on immediate financial benefits as the primary incentive.
Biography:
Martie-Louise Verreynne is a Professor in Innovation and Associate Dean (Research) in the Faculty of Business, Economics and Law at the University of Queensland. Martie-Louise develops and helps organisations implement state-of-the-art approaches to collaborate for improved innovation outcomes. She is particularly interested in processes and technologies of open innovation, and university-industry collaboration. Her research is published widely in top-tiered journals, influences policy and practice and is funded by the ARC, MRFF, government and industry partners. She has received several awards for research, engagement and a national award for teaching. Martie-Louise serves on several boards in health, sport, agriculture, infrastructure and marine science, and actively works with industry to create research impact.