Our universities need a redesign. The good news: the changes are not dramatic, and they can be managed. The bad news: those that do not change will be disrupted. Christensen warned us. (https://amzn.to/2vw484E) The needed changes go beyond cost-cutting. It’s a mind shift, a deep embrace of multidisciplinary approaches to complex, “wicked” challenges. This shift…

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Coming in March 2019, we are launching a new offering. Company teams will get insights into how German firms accelerate innovation by leveraging the power of the world’s leading applied research institute. For the past three years we have been piloting these approaches with the New Jersey Innovation Institute (NJII). We are now prepared to…

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The National Science Foundation administers a highly  successful program to accelerate  commercialization of university research. Called  Innovation Corps or I-Corps, the initiative builds a capability on university campuses to move promising research ideas into the market. Based on a methodology called Lean Launchpad, the program guides faculty and students through an intensive process of customer…

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We’re finding more and more value in the concept of “strategic diversity” – that is, the way in which team members’ cognitive preferences shape their roles on the team. Learning how to optimize that diversity can take your team from average to a true “innovating network” that can solve the toughest challenges. The AEM-Cube(TM) –…

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The Lab is  heading back to The Netherlands. We are working with our Dutch partner, Human Insight,  on a workshop to develop  an innovation and entrepreneurial  ecosystem in agribusiness and food in The Netherlands. We are working with the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality and the food accelerator, FoodStars, to organize this workshop. …

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The Lab  has entered the I-Corps program to explore the development of an interactive platform that would help companies in the food industry accelerate innovation. The idea for this spin out emerged from discussions with Bruce Hammaker  at the Whistler Center for Carbohydrate Research. Here’s the challenge: large food companies are losing the innovation race.…

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Based on the continuing work we are doing in developing entrepreneurial and innovation ecosystems, the Lab has compiled a guidebook for practitioners. The publication provides practionters with insghts into the critical tools, frameworks and disciplines that the Lab uses to guide the design of these ecosystems. You can download a copy of this guidebook here.…

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The Kauffman Foundation’s  entrepreneurship initiatives are undergoing transformation. Under the leadership of Victor Hwang,  Kauffman has assembled an impressive team of young professionals with ambitious plans to support the replication of entrepreneurial ecosystems across the country. Victor turned to the Lab for assistance in designing a research roadmap to support the development and scaling of…

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Large food companies are losing the growth race. Smaller, more agile companies are growing at a far faster rate. As a result, the largest 25 food companies are losing market share. In response, they are  acquiring some of these smaller fast growth companies. But is there another way to accelerate  top line growth for large…

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It’s no surprise that academic research often lags behind market developments (Brown & Mawson, 2017). What if, to help us close this gap, we thought of practitioners and policy makers as researchers? What if we consider them not users of research but co-producers? Sound strange? It shouldn’t. This trend is underway in the agricultural sector.…

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