Promoting Innovation through Industry Partnerships Prof. Olawole Obembe Department of Biological Sciences Covenant University, Ota, Nigeria A paper presented at the Executive Advance /2016 Academic Session For Faculty and Senior Non-Teaching Staff at Covenant University, Ota, on August 3, 2015 Theme: Innovation, Product Development and Nation Building

What is Innovation? Definition of Innovation: Innovation is the process and outcome of creating something new, which is also of value. Scope of Innovation: Innovation involves the whole process from opportunity identification, invention to development, prototyping, production, marketing and sales.

The cultural divide between universities and industry The University Culture: The University generally has a discovery-driven culture. The industry environment: The industry has innovation-driven environment; which always pushes for new advanced products with better value, cheaper production processes and in some cases cleaner environment.

Basic purposes of industry partnerships push the frontiers of knowledge produce a powerful engine for promotion of innovation and economic growth e.g. the Silicon Valley.

Types of partnerships Long-term strategic partnership is top priority for world-class universities. It influences the university’s future research and a company’s strategy. Operational partnership is based on joint research projects between universities and industry Transactional partnership puts significant impact on teaching and learning e.g. between CU and SoftCom.

Challenge of attracting partnerships in developing economies Forging partnerships is not easy. Industry’s expectation is the supply of well- educated human resources rather than production of creative inventions. Most firms either develop their own technologies or import cutting edge technologies from advanced countries.

What is the way forward? There is need for a paradigm shift by extending the roles of universities beyond teaching and research to tackling key social challenges and helping drive nation building. This hopefully will lead to a reversal of the trend.

The CU context We have made an in-road to forging sustainable partnerships through the informal interaction in June. We are strategizing to ensure their eventual engagements in our activities.

Thank you for listening