Innovation Strategy

To drive impactful innovation, ENVRIs must adopt a structured Innovation Strategy that aligns with their long-term objectives, maximizes collaboration, and ensure sustainable growth.

The following key components form the foundation of an effective strategy, helping ENVRIs navigate complex innovation ecosystems, and enhance their role in technology development. A well-defined overall strategy provides direction to other cascading strategies (business, marketing, sales etc), ensuring clear direction, resource optimization, mitigates risks and provides a competitive advantage.

Strategy

Strategy

Innovation Types

Innovation Types

Development and Planning

Development and Planning

Stragety

Innovation strategy is a structured plan that defines how an organization promotes, manages, and leverages innovation to achieve its long-term objectives. In essence, it serves as the organization’s game plan, outlining how it operates, competes, and creates value. It bridges the gap between the current state and a desired future by setting clear goals and identifying the actions required to reach them. A well-crafted innovation strategy provides direction, establishes priorities, and clarifies the role of innovation within the broader business or research mission. It is essential because it aligns innovation efforts with institutional goals, enhances competitiveness, ensures optimal use of resources, and fosters adaptability in a rapidly evolving environment.

To develop an effective innovation strategy, organizations should evaluate internal strengths and external opportunities, define clear innovation objectives, select strategic focus areas, and create actionable implementation roadmaps.


Stragety
Component Purpose Relevant Tools Description Way When

Strategy

Outlines long-term innovation goals, priorities, and alignment with the mission. Sets direction for impactful innovation efforts.

Innovation strategy should be tight to the business strategies.

Tools and frameworks for developing an innovation strategy with steps for analysis and goal-setting.

Conduct SWOT and PESTLE analyses, use templates to draft a strategic plan integrating innovation into the core mission.

At the start of the strategic planning cycle or when redefining innovation focus.

Open Innovation

Foster innovation through external collaboration with industry, academia, or public sector; access new capabilities, markets, and funding.

Introduction to Open Innovation

Defines how and why to partner externally to drive innovation—leveraging joint R&D, IP co-creation, crowdsourcing, or innovation networks.

Identify collaboration needs aligned with strategic goals; establish frameworks and governance for joint projects

During strategic planning; when launching initiatives that need external knowledge, scaling, or funding

Stakeholder mapping

Identify and prioritize key stakeholders to foster effective collaboration and align innovation efforts with their needs and expectations.

How to Create a Stakeholder Map Guide

A structured process to map stakeholders based on their influence, interest, and role in innovation initiatives. Involves identifying internal and external stakeholders (e.g., industry partners, academic institutions, public sector, funding bodies), assessing their needs, and defining engagement strategies to support open innovation.

Conduct stakeholder analysis workshops, use mapping tools to categorize stakeholders by influence and interest, and develop tailored engagement plans to align with strategic innovation goals.

During strategic planning, at the start of innovation initiatives, or when seeking external collaboration for knowledge, scaling, or funding.

Innovation Health Assessment

Identifies gaps, risks, and opportunities in innovation processes, ensuring strategic alignment and capability building.

Innovation Health Assessment Tool

A diagnostic tool evaluating innovation state (culture, processes, resources, outcomes).

Use the tool for a comprehensive review with stakeholders to identify improvement areas.

Periodically (e.g., annually) or during strategic planning cycles.

IP Strategy

Manages, protects, and leverages intellectual assets for innovation impact. Business needs ot have a proactive app

Refer to IPR Management section in Technology Transfer Module

A plan for handling IP, ensuring protection and utilization align with innovation goals.

Develop an IP strategy aligned with innovation objectives.

Before new research projects or commercialization efforts.

Innovation types

Innovation is not one-size-fits-all. Organizations innovate in different ways and at different depths, depending on their goals, context, and resources. Two useful lenses to understand innovation are:

Value-Based Innovation Types

This framework describes what an organization changes in order to create value. It identifies four primary areas where innovation can take place:

  1. Product Innovation: Introducing new or significantly improved goods or services.
  2. Process Innovation: Enhancing how things are done through more efficient or effective workflows.
  3. Business Model Innovation: Changing how value is created, delivered, and captured—often involving revenue models, customer engagement, or value chains.
  4. Organizational Innovation: Transforming internal structures, cultural norms, or management practices to better support innovation and adaptability.

These innovation types help organizations map the focus of their efforts and ensure alignment with internal capabilities and stakeholder needs. Tools like the Business Model Canvas or Customer Journey Mapping can be used to operationalize them.

Strategic Innovation Approaches

While Value-Based Types focus on what changes, Strategic Innovation Approaches describe how profound or transformative those changes are, based on two axes:

  1. The degree of technological change
  2. The extent of business model transformation

This leads to four strategic categories:


Strategic Innovation Types Description

Routine Innovation

Builds on existing capabilities and business models by making incremental improvements to known products or processes.

Radical Innovation

Introduces completely new technologies or concepts that can transform industries or create entirely new markets.

Disruptive Innovation

Starts as a lower-cost or lower-performance alternative, then displaces established products by appealing to new or underserved markets.

Architectural Innovation

Reconfigures existing technologies or components into new system architectures, creating novel combinations without inventing new parts.

This framework supports strategic decision-making, helping organizations like those in the ENVRI community to balance short-term efficiency with long-term transformation.


Innovation types
Component Purpose Relevant Tools Description Way When

Innovation Types

Helps understand and apply different innovation types based on capability and context.

Explains four innovation types (product, process, position, paradigm) and BMC for business model innovation.

Review types and use BMC to plan or refine innovation approaches.

When planning new initiatives or evaluating current approaches.

Strategic Approach

Guides organizations to align innovation efforts with technology and business model changes.

Innovation landscape map

Maps innovations as routine, radical, disruptive, or architectural to balance risk and impact in strategic planning.

Use map to classify and balance portfolios of innovation projects.

During strategic planning or portfolio management cycles.

How They Work Together

Think of the Value-Based Innovation Types as focusing on the scope of innovation (product, process, model, organization), while the Strategic Innovation Approaches reflect the depth and impact of that innovation.

The table below illustrates how different types of innovation can align with strategic approaches to achieve varying levels of impact.


Value-Based Type → Can be implemented through → Strategic Innovation Approach

Product Innovation

via incremental upgrades

Routine Innovation

Product Innovation

via breakthrough tech

Radical Innovation

Process Innovation

via digital tools

Architectural Innovation

Business Model Innovation

via platform shift

Disruptive Innovation

Organizational Innovation

via cultural change or restructuring

Can support all four strategies

By combining both perspectives, institutions can design innovation portfolios that are targeted (what) and balanced (how far)—ensuring that each initiative contributes to both operational excellence and organization vision.

Development and Planning

Development and planning offer the ENVRI community a structured approach to transform innovation vision into coordinated, goal-driven action. This phase ensures that innovation efforts are strategically aligned with long-term objectives, stakeholder needs, and emerging opportunities in environmental research. It focuses on defining the purpose, scope, and timeline of innovation through essential guiding tools and documents.

Development and planning

Component Purpose Relevant Tools Description Way When

Innovation Charter &

Sets the innovation vision, identifies key areas, technologies, and opportunities, supporting the business model.

Innovation Charter Template

A high-level guiding document that articulates the “why” behind innovation efforts, aligning stakeholders on goals and scope.

Co-develop the charter with key stakeholders to define purpose, scope, goals, and expected outcomes.

During strategy development or when launching a new initiative or strategic focus.

Roadmap

Identifies key research areas, emerging technologies, and innovation opportunities over time.

Strategy/Product Roadmap Template

A timeline-based plan that translates strategic priorities into actionable steps, milestones, and deliverables.

Create a visual roadmap linking innovation activities to goals, timelines, and resource planning.

After the strategy or charter is defined; used in planning and execution phases.

How This Supports Innovation in ENVRI

  1. Alignment: Ensures that all innovation activities are guided by a shared vision and aligned with the infrastructure’s mission and stakeholder needs.
  2. Clarity: Breaks down long-term ambitions into actionable steps, reducing uncertainty and supporting better coordination across teams and projects.
  3. Adaptability: Provides a reference point to evaluate progress and revise plans based on technological evolution or environmental challenges.

Together, the Innovation Charter and Roadmap create a bridge between strategic intent and operational execution, helping ENVRIs develop meaningful innovations in a coherent and resource-efficient way.