ABSTRACT
In recent years, businesses have expanded how they harness new industry opportunities through open-innovation initiatives, where companies invite interdisciplinary groups to work together towards new ideas and concepts. While hard sciences’ researchers may contribute towards programming and other similar tasks, humanities researchers can contribute with unique angles and methodologies, pushing the boundaries of existing products and business models and helping companies expand their perspectives and market opportunities. In these emerging collaborations, there are constraints and considerations that need assessing towards the open innovation paradigm. For example, how can open innovation frameworks create tangible value towards human-centred business innovation?
This article presents and discuss this question through a research pilot case from within the field of architecture as an illustration of how to best deploy and facilitate open innovation collaborations of interdisciplinary character. Our chapter contributes to the discussions of how human-centred research–industry collaboration might be a way to rethink humanities research in architecture practice towards novel business opportunities.
