Contribuições da maturidade na inovação aberta em ambientes de inovação: estudo de caso em um Campus do IFRS

Abstract

Technological progress, the rapid changes in consumption habits, the climate change, demographic shifts, and resource scarcity, are factors driving organizations to continuously seek innovation for economic growth. This pursuit is most effective in the Open Innovation model, which integrates companies, governments, and academia. In this scenario, the innovation environments of Science and Technology Institutions are important elements for facilitating the development of solutions and fostering entrepreneurship, with enterprise capabilities maturity level analysis serving as a way to diagnose the current stage of these environments and optimize their processes and results. Despite this, the literature still presents few studies focused on these environments in public educational institutions. Aiming to fill this gap, a study was conducted involving a Campus of a federal institution of professional and technological education, with the objective of analyzing how the maturity level of the innovation environments contributes to open innovation practices. To this end, a qualitative, applied research approach was carried out, using a case study strategy. Regarding the objectives, the research was exploratory and descriptive. Data collection occurred through documentary research, non-participant direct observation, and semi-structured interviews with the coordinators and ex-coordinators of these environments, including the application of the adapted maturity model, as well as interviews with participants from the Campus management, the Rectorate, and the local innovation ecosystem. Content analysis was used for data analysis with the NVivo 15 software. Data triangulation was also performed. The results obtained indicate an intermediate level of maturity in three of the four environments analyzed, and one with a maturity level close to the maximum. The main contributions to expanding open innovation practices are: closer ties with the productive sector, articulation with local ecosystem actors, agility and expansion of partnerships, and education for innovation and entrepreneurship. The existence of cohesive, but fragile, leadership, an innovation culture within the institution, expertise lacking sufficient personnel and formalized methodologies, and governance that provides institutional support but lacks models and process integration are some factors that contributed to building this maturity and the manifested contributions. As a result of this study, it is hoped that the study's findings will offer suggestions for improving the maturity level and open innovation practices. [resumo fornecido pelo autor]