Spring 2023 Newsletter is here!

Gabriella Losito – April 2023

Spring has officially sprung; days are getting brighter and with the end of another busy term we would like to present you with our latest Newsletter which captures the key research activities and latest updates from our CIMR community in the past term.

CIMR members

We are really pleased to see a few new members joining our CIMR community during the last term,  Dr Nicola Searle, Senior Lecturer at ICCE, Goldsmiths, University of London,; and Darul Hamdi, MSc in Business Innovation with Entrepreneurship (Birkbeck, University of London).

During this term we also paid homage to our CIMR Visiting Fellow Prof. Loet Leydesdorff who has been a source of inspiration for so many scholars worldwide and a very supportive member of CIMR, whom we will miss terribly.

Latest research activities

On the front of research activities, our CIMR members have been very busy working on a variety of new papers and studies in diverse fields.

Within the research field of Innovation, our CIMR Deputy Director Federica Rossi, together with Annalisa Caloffi, Ana Colovic, and Valentina Rizzoli, have published a study investigating which organisations engage in innovation intermediation activities, how they differ, and how they relate to each other. Within the same field, our CIMR Director Helen Lawton Smith with Dr Ning Baines and Dr Te Klangboonkrong have released a study exploring product/service innovation process in UK University spin-offs from practice-based lens. Furthermore, Ibukun Onitiju has released a research highlighting the challenges of blockchain adoption in the food supply chain in West Africa, and Dr Chunjia Han explored the role of lead users in firms’ decision of consideration and implementation of innovative ideas.  

Additional research have been released within the field of academia and their engagement with businesses. Claudio Fassio, Aldo Geuna and Federica Rossi examine the role of personal and organizational factors as drivers of international collaborations between firms and universities. Claudio Fassio and Ioana Igna also analyse the employment choices of foreign graduates, as compared to those of native graduates, in the Swedish economy. Finally, with their study “The relationship between universities’ funding portfolios and their knowledge exchange profiles: A dynamic capabilities view”, Abhijit Sengupta and Federica Rossi contribute significantly to the growing understanding of the modern dynamic university and how its KE profile reshapes itself in response to changing higher education landscape.

Events summary

Our CIMR Debate series of events continued successfully during the Spring term with very interesting online discussions. We discussed the effectiveness of government initiatives to stimulate the Life Science sector on the 18th of January, then the 1st of February Prof. Ron Smith led the session “Innovation and the defence industry: do we need war?” stemming from his book on defence acquisition and procurement. Lastly, we had two sessions on innovations, the first one on the 22nd February about aligning regulation and innovation within disruptive technologies; and discussing the socio-cultural conditions for radical innovation on the 15th of March.

Overall achievements

This start of the year has also brought a few notable achievements for our CIMR members that we would like to mention.

The entrepreneurship education team of Birkbeck, University of London has been awarded the Vice Chancellor’s Awards for Excellence in Teaching and Learning. The team comprise many CIMR members including Professor Muthu De Silva, Prof Helen Lawton Smith, Doyin Olorunfemi, and Dr Pam Yeow.

Additionally, the paper “The role of higher education institutions in transnational networks for teaching and learning innovation: The case of the Erasmus programme” by CIMR Deputy Director Federica Rossi and Tatiana Fumasoli was awarded Top Cited Article 2021-2022 in Wiley’s European Journal of Education, March 2023

Looking ahead to the 2023 Summer term

Our very successful series of online lunchtime seminars is continuing in the Summer term of 2023 with an exciting programme of events. Find the full calendar here and register your place!

We look forward to welcoming you in these discussions featuring leading scholar and practitioners from across the globe!

You can access the full Spring 2023 Newsletter edition here