About

U-STIR (User Driven Stimulation of Radical New Technological Steps in Surface Transport) funded by the EU Framework 7 programme (2009- 2013) 

This project examined effective mechanisms to engage institutions, transport industry stakeholders and users with market transformation for low carbon vehicles and infrastructure. A small part of the work included the development of the Open2-Innova8ion Tool – an interactive, multi-media, web-based software tool for rating organisational innovation performance.  

The Open University team was led by Professor S. Potter (Primary Investigator) with Dr Sally Caird (Research Fellow). Professor Stephen Hallett supported the web-tool development of the Open2-Innovation Tool

Keywords: sustainable innovation, transport innovation, low carbon vehicle innovation, sustainable transport, innovation tools 

The Open2-Innova8ion Tool was created by adapting the European Commission’s work on developing empirical measures of national innovation performance with the Summary Innovation Index (SII) for application at the organisational level. The Tool was designed for organisations to use with employees, from senior managers to all types of employees, who have an interest in rating the innovation performance of their organisation. The Tool provided textual feedback, together with graphic ratings using Google meters. Feedback was based on user perceptions of selected organisational indicators of ‘Innovation Enablers’, ‘Innovation Activities’, and ‘Innovation Outputs’ to provide an overall rating of innovation performance. Feedback compared the user perceptions of their employing organisation’s innovation performance with the user’s self-rating of their own innovativeness, allowing some interpretation of the congruence between the user perceptions of their own innovativeness and their organisation’s innovation performance. 

The Open2-Innova8ion Tool was a prototype tool trialled during a low carbon vehicle innovation workshop with participants (innovators) representing organisations from the surface transport industry as part of the U-STIR programme with EU Framework 7 funding. This web-tool was formerly publicly available and had applications to education, training, and research. 

Publications

Caird, S. Hallett, S. and Potter, S. (2013). ‘The Open2-Innova8ion Tool – A Software Tool for Rating Organisational Innovation Performance’. Technovation: The International Journal of Technological Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Technology Management, Vol. 33, pp. 381-385. Available http://oro.open.ac.uk/37794/