Questions/Answers

To successfully compete in tomorrow’s global economy, innovation is key. The new RDI networks are a transformational long-term strategy from several governments for generating economic growth by filling a critical gap in innovation landscape. The Innovation Network, created by INCM, gathers several partners from RDI institutions to SME’s. INCM mission is to promote the interface between the RDI institutions and the market, by driving knowledge to the market (especially SME’s), creating economic and social impact. This network aims at accelerating business innovation by building a bridge between world-leading research base and companies, large and small, which are ambitious for growth in technology-enabled markets. This is a fast-paced initiative with long-term benefit. The technology and innovation institutions will create a new framework for long-term investment and joint working between business and research institutes. The Innovation Network aims at improving the translation of research into profitable solutions, and expect economic and social impact through new opportunities to accelerate – and reduce the risk of – new product development. Together with RDI institutes we are creating a vital resource which will help to drive economic growth by closing the gap between science and economy and enhancing innovation in specific technology areas for years to come.

The Innovation Network is regarded as an integrated approach in the public sector since this initiative created a fruitful partnership between the state-owned industrial sector and the Portuguese RDI system, spanning universities, research centers and laboratories aiming at potentiating the knowledge created at RDI institutions to improve and create new products and services from the INCM’s portfolio which are also, at a certain level, a collection of products and services to the citizen provided by several public institutions. This shows the process of achievement of this objective of technology transfer wagging human resources, processes, management and leadership.

This initiative can be regarded as contributing to the 2030 Agenda mainly for the goal 9 - build resilient infrastructure, promote sustainable industrialization and foster innovation. Although Portugal is a developed country, its industrial sector and RDI system are barely intrinsically related which turns out to squander opportunities and to corner the national industries to excessively depend on foreign technologies. By creating and investing in the Innovation Network, the INCM is fomenting the national RDI system, by optimally integrating innovation ideas, projects and resources, whether they are human or material, in a knowledgeable system fostering sustainability.

The ultimate outcomes of an Innovation Network with the characteristics of the INCM’s one has several relevant and positive impacts on the society in general and in specific groups, including the most vulnerable ones, in particular. These impacts are mostly indirect and we can enumerate several projects with critical impact on human lives of groups of people, some of them in particular vulnerable contexts. As for how the initiative has addressed this issue, it can be emphasized that the management of the Innovation Network and Team are in charge of a woman (with a PhD degree), which is also Coordinator of the Innovation Committee of the company. The Innovation Management Team itself is composed of another woman with PhD.

The created Innovation Network is a rather new and innovative initiative in the Portuguese context due to the synergies established between universities, research centers, startups and industry in order to build knowledge that can be translated into new products and services. The new products and services contribute to the competitiveness of INCM and the associated business companies, which empower the Portuguese economy. A stronger economy offer more and better jobs that will be reflected into a better society with satisfied citizens.

The INCM Innovation Network is an original concept rolled by a framework developed under the national and international innovation standards. The developed framework makes INCM listening the market, building a ‘Market Pull’ strategy in the development of disruptive products and services. The market information together with INCM experience and ideas build a complete new innovation framework with the freedom to imagine impactful ideas. The financial support makes it possible to build prototypes based on the selected ideas. The successful prototypes are rapidly industrialized by INCM and the associated business companies.

The INCM’s Innovation Network was built as an open framework that can be replicated into other countries such as the Portuguese Speaking African Countries (PALOP) namely Cape Verde, Guinea Bissau, Mozambique, Sao Tome and Principe where new products and services can also help their societies to grow and meet the sustainable development goals and with which Portugal has strong commitment.

This Innovation Network and its initiatives are financed mainly from internal budget. To demonstrate the importance of these activities and commitment of the company was established to invest 1% of the yearly turnover in projects with RDI partners, by hiring them directly or by INCM annual Innovation Award. Additionally, it was also defined to apply for public grants (National and European) for giving some support for innovation projects. This Network is supported by the Innovation Management Team composed by 6 multidisciplinary members, being 4 of them PhD graduated and 2 of them woman (both with PhD, including the Head Manager).

Innovation Network has each year 1% of the company’s turnover dedicated to it, representing approximately 1 million€ to develop RDI activities, being economically sustainable. The majority of RDI streams chosen by INCM’s Innovation Network are focused on the administrative modernization of public services, being specially oriented to digital transformation and digital identification. At the digital identification, it was developed a project to match on card biometric solution for digital fingerprints, which is essential to assure the physical and digital security of citizens, not only Portuguese ones, but also the citizens of the less rich countries where INCM is introducing its technology and e-governance solutions. To contribute to the fight against counterfeiting and the traffic of goods, one of the top success projects is the development of instruments to achieve products authenticity and protection, having a huge contribution to this social problem. These are only two examples of the environmental sustainability of this network, aligned with the goal of social sustainability. To prove the social sustainability commitment of INCM’s Innovation Network, it was developed a project that aims at reducing the bacterial contamination on coins’ surface, with a crucial impact on the improvement of public health, especially in underdeveloped countries.

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INCM’s Innovation Network was evaluated following the Innovation Management Maturity Model which is composed of five levels of maturity, ranging from reactive to pervasive capabilities. At Level 1 (Reactive) or 2 (Active), innovation is generally localized and relatively low in value. An enterprise innovation management at Level 3 (Defined) is sustainable. At Levels 4 (Performing) and 5 (Pervasive), innovation is strategic, reliable and a core competency. To evaluate the actual INCM’s Innovation Level, auditors made interviews with the Innovation Team and Enterprise Leaders, analyzed Innovation Procedures and then explored the already established partnerships.

The indicators used to evaluate INCM’s Innovation Maturity were: 1) Strategy and Intent – If the Enterprise’s Leaders verbalize the importance of innovation. 2) Processes and Practices – If Innovation is a well-defined business process. 3) Culture and People – If Enterprise values the contributions from the employees. 4) Organization and Infrastructure – If there is organizational structure, resources and tools for Innovation Management. 5) Partnerships and Open Innovation – If Enterprise has access to potential innovators and innovations through direct and indirect relationships. 6) Innovating How We Innovate – If Enterprise adapts and adopts relevant new ideas and practices in innovation management.

INCM’s Innovation Management Maturity Assessment revealed a solid Level 3 (Defined), with the only exception of the Partnership and Open Innovation indicator that showed characteristics aligned to the Level 4 (Performing). The key outcome recommendations about how to further improve were: - Increase the level of formalization for the organization-wide Innovation Process, in order to facilitate the alignment of all the business units to the common practices. - Limit the focus of the Innovation team to the most impactful and visible initiatives, due to the current limited team size.

The Innovation Network was established for creating synergies between academia and industry, capturing and internalizing knowledge from RDI partners for creating high added value solutions for the society. Presently, the network has established partnerships with 18 public universities, laboratories, technological and research centers and startups, aiming at a dynamic interface for promoting knowledge transfer, surveillance and technological vision, and networking among the different players. The network, being itself collaborative by definition, is the main mechanism for involving and engaging stakeholders. The network coordination relies on INCM, which scouts the partners identifying their initiatives, leading and managing the collaborative process until the completion of the RDI cycle. One of the most significant stakeholders of this network is the Portuguese government, where government members helped guiding the Innovation Plan and gathering partners. Initially this was driven by the objective of Modernizing Public Administration but due to the huge potential impact of the network the government supported widening the scope of objectives and activities. The other stakeholders, being part of the network, are engaged by the collaborative development which can support their needs in the several stages of a project life (requirement analysis, research and development, testing and launching to the market).

The main lesson learned for INCM’s Innovation Network is the challenge of driving basic and applied research into market ready solutions, by promoting the cooperation between academia and industry and also making them share the same goals, mindset and path. The partners, being different institutions, might have different objectives and roadmap. It is key to perform technological surveillance, share knowledge and establish common procedures among the partners, in order to improve the networks’ performance. Additionally, it is important to improve the effectiveness of the network by defining concrete market oriented objectives for the RDI process in all TRL stages.