Towards knowledge exchange for effective innovation support

The term Knowledge Exchange (KE) is commonly used to describe university-industry collaborations that frequently foster innovation. Understanding such collaborations and their potential value is a difficult activity. The means of supporting collaboration vary significantly and potential for successful innovation is hard to asses. In this paper, we describe work aimed at developing an improved understanding of knowledge exchange within a digital context - both within digital sectors and also in non-digital sectors where the adoption of digital technologies can lead to new and challenging opportunities. Our work focuses upon digital innovation for Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs) aiming to support effective Knowledge Exchange based innovation; a specific driver being the difficulty of understanding the potential for successful and productive collaborations with individual SMEs. From a number of existing digital innovation models and instruments, factors for characterizing digital innovation potential have identified. However, based on our experience and expert feedback, such characterizations appear to be inappropriate for SMEs. In response to this, an instrument has been developed to identify potential for quality digital innovation based on collaborative KE between SMEs and universities. The instrument is introduced, and its development and refinement discussed.