Delivering innovation
Andrew Wallace at Otago Polytechnic explores how innovation is adopted and developed within design, education and business contexts.
Most New Zealand businesses do not have a good understanding of the role of innovation in their structures, processes and practices. There is also a lack of integrated alignment between industry, education and government around innovation. If we are to reap the benefits of innovation, it is critical for industry and educators to continue to question how to innovate, and explore best practices for doing so.
Research by Andrew Wallace, a senior lecturer in Product Design and industrial designer, explores why designers have a vital role to play within the process of innovation development and knowledge transfer and how best they can contribute to grow and sustain a culture of innovation. Andrew uses Vijay Kumar’s Design Innovation Process framework (2013) with its seven distinct modes of design thinking, and considers case studies, including action research as a method to engage industry.
Andrew's research identifies a limitation of Kumar’s approach; the knowledge which that framework generates often exhibits an extractive nature, placing emphasis on adoption rather than adaptation and sharing of innovation. Andrew has therefore developed a new framework, the Interrelated Innovation Framework (IIF). This is a participatory system, in which more people can effectively communicate around common values and which can manage complex projects even when they sit across academia and industry. The IIF can be used as a tool to generate social innovation outcomes and support collaborations between industry and academia.