Page 27 - Rižnar, Igor, and Klemen Kavčič (ed.). 2017. Connecting Higher Education Institutions with Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises. Koper: University of Primorska Press
P. 27
The Co-Creation of Competitive Knowledge
maps were based on the business model canvas developed during the
project.
Authors like Hadjimanolis (2006), Segarra-Blasco and Arauzo-Carod
(2008), Zhong, Mei, and Xie (2009) had already ascertained that Re-
search and Development (r & d) co-operation between companies and
higher education sector might bring joint benefits. Awuah (2008, 166)
found out that collaboration between higher education sector and
sme s could provide the company with access to new technologies, cur-
rent knowledge, and innovative processes that could improve the com-
pany’s competitiveness. Peças and Henriques (2006, 54) argued that
‘The collaboration between universities and s m e companies should
be based on a small projects base. These projects must be focused in
localised and specific problematic areas in the industrial companies,
where the potential for improvement and innovation is large, must
diagnose the problematic situation and propose new and efficient solu-
tions supported by technical/scientific methodologies.’ There are also
some constraints to the co-operation, mainly related to intellectual
property (ip) issues, i.e. Deschamps, Macedo, and Eve-Levesque (2013,
33) report three findings: ‘(i) s m e s do not care about understanding
and improving their capabilities concerning i p and are not equipped
with adequate tools and best practices for managing i p and the over-
all collaborative mechanisms in general; (ii) this gap in preparation for
open innovation is persistent, since even the intermediaries, whose
role is to guide s m e s in university-enterprise collaborations, suffer
themselves from a lack of appropriate i p transfer and sharing tools,
and do not perceive the need to offer better support in this regard; and
(iii) overall, current i p-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 collab-
orations.’
The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the literature by present-
ing an in-depth consideration of sustainable development in conjunc-
tion with the economic dimension. Despite the substantive complexity
of the concept of sustainability, its civilizational communication value
is in fact unambiguous: to avoid the entropic snare, we need long-term
balanced development. This development can only be sustainable in a
dynamic equilibrium between welfare and equity while being naturally
harmonised i.e. co-natural. Sustainability is presented as a concept and
25
maps were based on the business model canvas developed during the
project.
Authors like Hadjimanolis (2006), Segarra-Blasco and Arauzo-Carod
(2008), Zhong, Mei, and Xie (2009) had already ascertained that Re-
search and Development (r & d) co-operation between companies and
higher education sector might bring joint benefits. Awuah (2008, 166)
found out that collaboration between higher education sector and
sme s could provide the company with access to new technologies, cur-
rent knowledge, and innovative processes that could improve the com-
pany’s competitiveness. Peças and Henriques (2006, 54) argued that
‘The collaboration between universities and s m e companies should
be based on a small projects base. These projects must be focused in
localised and specific problematic areas in the industrial companies,
where the potential for improvement and innovation is large, must
diagnose the problematic situation and propose new and efficient solu-
tions supported by technical/scientific methodologies.’ There are also
some constraints to the co-operation, mainly related to intellectual
property (ip) issues, i.e. Deschamps, Macedo, and Eve-Levesque (2013,
33) report three findings: ‘(i) s m e s do not care about understanding
and improving their capabilities concerning i p and are not equipped
with adequate tools and best practices for managing i p and the over-
all collaborative mechanisms in general; (ii) this gap in preparation for
open innovation is persistent, since even the intermediaries, whose
role is to guide s m e s in university-enterprise collaborations, suffer
themselves from a lack of appropriate i p transfer and sharing tools,
and do not perceive the need to offer better support in this regard; and
(iii) overall, current i p-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 collab-
orations.’
The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the literature by present-
ing an in-depth consideration of sustainable development in conjunc-
tion with the economic dimension. Despite the substantive complexity
of the concept of sustainability, its civilizational communication value
is in fact unambiguous: to avoid the entropic snare, we need long-term
balanced development. This development can only be sustainable in a
dynamic equilibrium between welfare and equity while being naturally
harmonised i.e. co-natural. Sustainability is presented as a concept and
25
