Plays
The following 9 key “plays” are drawn from successful collaborations between companies and universities that, if followed together, will help you build effective innovation partnerships.
#1 Play Manage risk and uncertainty with capability and outcome alignment.
#2 Play Understand what a university partner can do.
#3 Play Exploit the whole ecosystem for innovation.
#4 Play Leverage your investment with additional funding.
#5 Play Steer the partnership with formal and informal relationships.
#6 Play Use simple legal agreements and templates.
#7 Play Generate social capital and exploit proximity.
#8 Play Create and manage partnership projects that deliver.
#9 Play Set the agenda with internal and external partners.
Manage risk and uncertainty with capability and outcome alignment.
By their nature, both research and innovation involve uncertainty. It is impossible in advance to predict with 100% certainty what will come from a particular research or innovation activity. But uncertainty is not the same as risk. An uncertainty only becomes a risk when one or more of the possible outcomes would lead to a significant unwanted event, loss, or downside. One way to mitigate risks in research activities between a University and Company is to align them around shared capabilities, rather than a shared research outcome. This approach shifts focus away from specific high-risk outcomes, and towards the co-creation of a high impact common capability.
Action list:
> Create a clear shared vision of the capabilities which over the long term will be of high value to both partners.
> Focus attention on the initial shape and set-up of a programme of work to make these capabilities real.
> Clearly define a set of simple and reasonable arrangements for ongoing access.
> Agree how the partners will define jointly beneficial development plans for the shared capabilities.
> Explore whether the shared capabilities could be opened up more broadly, and in doing so attract regional and national government funding.
Chapters 5 & 21 of the playbook.
Understand what a university partner can do.
When you are looking to partner with a university to gain access to world-leading knowledge, graduates, and capabilities, it is vital to be able to differentiate between different types of university, so that you can engage with those that match your needs and ambitions.
Action list:
> Look for universities which have a high concentration or critical mass of talent in both the permanent faculty and the student body.
> Check that a university has sufficient resources to provide extensive, comprehensive learning conditions and a rich environment for advanced research.
> Ensure that your choice of university partner is open to fair and reasonable governance arrangements.
> Through initial discussions, probe whether the university will allow and encourage autonomy, strategic vision, innovation, efficient resource management, and flexibility.
Chapters 6 & 7 of the playbook.
Exploit the whole ecosystem for innovation.
A thriving innovation ecosystem enables all who are involved in it to interact together effectively to strengthen the potential impact of their individual research and development activities.
Action list:
> Write down your full innovation ambition, ignoring whether the resources you need to achieve that ambition are in your direct control.
> Assume, for the time being, that partners outside your organisation can be found to fill in the gaps required to achieve your full ambition.
> Loosely sketch out the network or ecosystem you will need to achieve your ambition.
> Articulate the role that your company can play as part of the wider network or ecosystem that you are involved in.
> Add in the connections or interactivity that needs to be added to unlock the full innovation capacity of the ecosystem.
Chapters 9 & 10 of the playbook.
Leverage your investment with additional funding.
The benefits of an appropriately aligned strategic partnership for a company include opportunities to co-investment in projects and capabilities which can then be used as leverage for additional investments and impact.
Action list:
> Create a short-list of innovation targets which are just outside of the reach of your organisation’s budgets.
> Using these targets make a detailed map of ‘missing work packages’.
> Decide which of these work packages could be delivered by a partner and co-funded by Government or 3rd party funding.
> Do your homework - what local / national / regional funding schemes exist which could be targeted for the work packages?
Chapters 18 & 19 of the playbook.
Steer the partnership with formal and informal relationships.
Partnerships are built by people using the network of relationships they have developed within their own organisations and the partner organisation. Some of these relationships have a specified and formal status between the two organisations. Other key individuals may have informal relations which are as important as the formal ones. The trick is to make appropriate use of both types of relationship.
Action list:
> Make a simple map of all the key relationships you are aware of in the partnership - both formal and informal.
> Periodically update your map. High-pressure projects force the development of good working relationships. They are an asset to build on.
> Carefully use your map. Manage day to day transactional work through the formal channels. Listen for issues and opportunities through informal channels.
> When strategic opportunties arise, use the informal networks sensitively to bring the idea up to the level required to get attention.
Chapters 15 & 25 of the playbook.
Use simple legal agreements and templates.
In partnerships, no matter how outwardly complex, the KISS principle applies (Keep It Simple, Stupid). This is particularly important for the legal frameworks and agreements that you put in place. Before asking your lawyer to write an agreement, set out in plain English what you want to achieve, and describe how you would like things to work.
Action list:
> Use different frameworks and structures to address strategic, operational, and tactical aspects of the partnership.
> Don’t assume that you know what your partner wants. Ask them what they want, and make sure you listen.
> Once you have a draft legal agreement, see if you can achieve the same thing with half the words.
> Once you have a final agreement, write a parallel set of explanatory notes in plain English.
Chapter 25 & 26 of the playbook.
Generate social capital and exploit proximity.
A strong partnership is woven from a thousand threads of mutual trust and respect, built up over time. Use any and all appropriate means to form these threads.
Action list:
> Make time in the early stages of the development of the partnership to encourage social ennagement.
> When issues arise, find ways to use the extended network you have developed to help disipate tensions, or unlock new solutions.
> Make the most of the different types of proximity that exist between your organisation and your partners.
> Jointly celebrate partnership successes. Jointly commit to resolve issues. Use small scale project succeses to build momentum towards larger and more ambitious projects.
Chapters 20 & 22 of the playbook.
Create and manage partnership projects that deliver.
In the end, a succesful innovation partnership needs to deliver more value to each of the partners than they could create on their own. This value is created through a series of joint projects, each of which has a begining, a middle, and an end. Spend time on creating a portfolio of project ideas. Choose those that can create the most mutual value, set them up, and then deliver them.
Action list:
> Create a simple regular forum for talking about potential projects.
> Proposals make progress. So write simple project proposals and share them with your partner. These proposals describe what is important to you. The modifications your partner makes, describe what is also important (and unimportant) to them.
> Use a simple format to articulate proposals e.g. a BOSCARD (Background, Objectives, Scope, Constraints, Assumptions, Risks, Deliverables).
> At the end of each joint project, take time for an open and honest review of what you have learnt as partners from the project.
Chapters 17, 23, 24 & 27 of the playbook.
Set the agenda with internal and external partners.
Creating a successful partnership between two organisations is impossible without each partner having its own strong internal alliance of stakeholders. Ensure that everyone in your organisation who needs to know about the shape, size and scope of the partnership, actually does know.
Action list:
> In the process of setting up a new partnership, spend time building your own organisations ‘internal alliance’ of stakeholders.
> If a big decision needs to be made, double check the ‘pulse’ of the internal alliance before proceeding.
> When a change in leadership happens (in either organisation), make sure that the new leaders are briefed about the partnership. Don’t assume that the benefits of the partnership are self-evident.
> Over time, you will develop a ‘sixth-sense’ of what will work easily with your partner, and what will not. Don’t ignore your intuition.
Chapters 3, 13 & 28 of the playbook.
A partnership is never ‘100% Done’.
Just when you thought you had figured out how to make the partnership sing, something will change. Keeping your eye on the Plays above, will help you deal with these changes and keep the partnership evolving.