Research projects

• Principal Investigator: Jonathan Wareham
• Research group: IIK
• Funding body: European Commission Framework Programme
• Funding: 631.375,00 €
• Duration: 48 months

The ATTRACT Phase-2 project aims to consolidate a European innovation ecosystem focused on breakthrough Detection & Imaging technologies. This ecosystem is backboned by three types of actors: National and European RIs, Industrial organizations and their associated communities. Although these actors understand and practice innovation under different rationales, the goal of ATTRACT Phase-2 merges their common aim for overcoming the innovation “Valley-of-Death”.

Departing from the success of the ongoing project ATTRACT Phase-1, this project will focus and fund the proven and most promising breakthrough technology concepts from the previous phase showing a strong potential for scientific, industrial and societal applications. ATTRACT Phase-2 is conceived as an instrument to further support their development and substantially raise their Technology Readiness Level towards the market. ATTRACT Phase-2 is also scaling up the opportunities for young entrepreneurs with respect to the previous phase. Following from ATTRACT Phase-1, this project will provide up to 400 young innovators the opportunity, methodologies and mentoring for developing novel concepts and prototypes of technological solutions addressing Societal Challenges inspired and in collaboration by the detection and imaging technologies developed within the funded projects.

Additionally, ATTRACT Phase-2 will deliver a first of a kind Socio Economic Study of an innovation ecosystem in the making, realised by top experts and addressing different points of view and practices. ATTRACT Phase-2 will also undertake serious efforts for exploring the possibility of blending public and private financing in an open dialogue with their respective stakeholders in order to provide future models to streamline innovation funding.

• Principal Investigator: Jonathan Wareham
• Research group: IIK
• Funding body: European Commission Framework Programme (HORIZON) Elevating the scalability potential of European business (2021) (HORIZON-EIE-2021-SCALEUP-01)
• Funding: 163.375,00 €
• Duration: 27 months

The ATTRACT Phase-1(B) project delivers an important new angle to the already established and highly regarded ATTRACT Model which created a European eco-system for breakthrough detection & imaging (D&I) technology development based on coinnovation. The precursor H2020 ATTRACT Phase-1(A) and Phase-2 projects have already proven that - in principle - the development of breakthrough innovation from basic science towards market applications does not need to be a matter of chance. It can lead to much faster results if managed and supported consistently through the creation of an trusted ecosystem between research, academia, industry and public/private investment communities. In neither precursor projects, however, the ATTRACT Consortium specified topics to be funded and opted for a bottom up approach.

In light of the societal challenges that Europe faces, the ATTRACT Consortium now feels compelled to explore whether such approach remains valid, or whether ATTRACT - as an instrument - can work equally well when an element of research pre-determination is introduced. In the ATTRACT Phase-1(B) project, the pre-determining factor is 'D&I for Earth observation and monitoring', as such technologies directly contribute to a better understanding of the dynamics of nature-human interaction, environmental changes and Climate Change. The ATTRACT Consortium will fund 30 breakthrough D&I concepts at €100.000 each. Third Party Open Call applicant consortia will have 12 months to investigate the scientific merits, technical feasibility, and potential game-changing applicability potential of their concept up to TRL level 3-5. Technologies should be capable of collecting data (physical, chemical, biological, etc., characteristics) with high specificity and extreme sensitivity whilst offering high spatial and temporal resolution and massive parallelism. They should be suitable for seamless integration into pervasive, low cost, and low-power ICT systems (incl. portable, wearable, IoT).

• Principal Investigator: Ivanka Visnjic
• Research group: IIK
• Funding body: MICINN-MCIU
• Funding: 57,500€
• Duration: 24 months

Sustainable business model (SBM) innovation represents the inclusion of sustainability objectives in new business model development. This nascent phenomenon promises to help corporations that struggle to become purpose-driven, identify synergies between shareholder and stakeholder objectives. While existing research has focused on the categorization of SBMs, the question of how large corporations can engage in SBM innovation and transform their existing business models towards sustainability remains unanswered. Thankfully, a great deal of the transformation questions has already been considered in the broader business model literature, particularly concerning the transformation to service and digital business models. Combining new empirical research with learnings from the extant literature on business model transformation, we intend to answer the key questions regarding transformation towards SBMs in corporate settings. In doing so, our objective is to advance SBM literature and to help the growing number of interested corporations follow the lead of the early corporate adopters of SBM.

• Ref.: PID2021-129026NB-I00
• Principal Investigator: Ivanka Visnjic
• Research group: IIK
• Funding body: Generación de Conocimiento 2021 Ministerio Ciencia e Innovación
• Funding: 50.820,00 €
• Duration: 48 months

Sustainable business model (SBM) innovation represents inclusion of sustainability objectives in new business model development. This nascent phenomenon promises to help corporations that struggle to become purpose-driven, identify synergies between shareholder and stakeholder objectives. While existing research has focused on the categorization of SBMs, the question of how large corporations can engage in SBM innovation and transform their existing business models towards sustainability remains unanswered. Thankfully, a great deal of the transformation questions have already been considered in the broader business model literature, particularly concerning the transformation to service and digital business models. Combining new empirical research with learnings from the extant literature on business model transformation, we intend to answer the key questions regarding transformation towards SBMs in corporate settings. In doing so, our objective is to advance SBM literature and to help growing number of interested corporations follow the lead of the early corporate adopters of SBM.

The overarching objective of this project is to advance the understanding of transformation towards sustainable business model(s) in corporate settings. This includes:

1. building theory on how companies should (re)organize to promote creation and development of SBMs;
2. building theory on how they should go about SBM development and scaling; and
3. testing these theories.

• Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades – Generación del conocimiento 2018
• PGC2018-101022-A-100
• Investigadora principal: Ivanka Visnjic

La innovación de producto-servicio (IPS) se considera una innovación sistémica que afecta todo el ecosistema empresarial. La IPS está muy relacionada con la aparición de los nuevos modelos de negocios digitales que han permitido a las empresas incorporar las demandas de los consumidores para desarrollar su oferta de productos y servicios. Por tanto, la IPS está muy asociada con las estrategias de integración vertical características de las innovaciones sistémicas. En este contexto, las empresas manufactureras deben llevar a cabo una transformación organizativa que les permita adaptar las innovaciones a sus productos y a sus servicios, puesto que los procesos de desarrollo de ambas innovaciones no siguen necesariamente las mismas fases.

Las fases de lanzamiento de un producto empiezan con la investigación del producto, su diseño y desarrollo, seguidos de las fases de producción y uso. Los procesos de innovación en servicios son diametralmente opuestos. La innovación en un servicio empieza con la fase de diseño, precedida por una fase conjunta de producción y uso, y sigue con otra fase en que los servicios se producen y se prestan simultáneamente. La IPS, debido a las características inherentes de los servicios y al papel crucial que desempeña el cliente, se ha convertido en una opción estratégica para las empresas que alcanzan una posición dominante en el ecosistema empresarial, no solo en las relaciones business-to-business (B2B), sino también con el último eslabón de la cadena de valor, eso es, con el cliente final.

Este proyecto analiza la relevancia de las innovaciones sistémicas en los servicios (IPS o "servitización") y su impacto en la configuración de la organización de los procesos de producción de las empresas, así como el rol que desempeñan los nuevos modelos de negocio de producto-servicio y las nuevas propuestas de valor para obtener una ventaja competitiva, una posición dominante y una mayor generación de ingresos en los ecosistemas de negocios en que operan las empresas.

• Ref.: ACM2022_11
• Principal Investigator: Ivanka Visnjic 
• Research group: IIK
• Funding body: Aristos Campus Mundus (ACM)
• Funding: 2.500,00 €
• Duration: 12 months

This project will be carried out jointly by researchers from the Esade Institute for Innovation and Knowledge Management and the Management Department at Deusto Business School, in the area of ​​specialization FA2, in the form of a study on business (re)organization, the creation and development of Sustainable Business Models (SBMs). Our goal is to facilitate the understanding of the transformation towards SBMs, help interested companies to follow the example set by the pioneers in adopting SBMs and advance theoretical development. We will contrast recent empirical research on pioneers implementing SBMs with theoretical foundations on business model transformation. Therefore, our objectives are; (1) build a theory on how companies should (re)organize to promote the creation of SBMs, and (2) build a theory on how SBMs should be developed and scaled at the project level.

• European Comission – Horizon 2020
• GA 691140
• Coordinador: CERN – Switzerland   
• Investigador: Wim Vanhaverbeke

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