Engineering for Change with Roadmapping. A Framework and Practical Process for Supporting University-Industry Collaborative Innovation on Sustainable Development

Engineering has changed the world, with successive industrial revolutions transforming human development; but accelerating progress has been accompanied by accelerating impacts on society and the environment. The complexity, pace and scale of global sustainability challenges are unprecedented, requiring a systems approach to solution innovation which can integrate multi-disciplinary capabilities from academia, business, and governments. Open Innovation (OI) describes approaches which purposively convene diverse knowledge and capabilities to create advantaged systems and solutions. While traditionally focused on delivering commercial value, OI is emerging as a promising approach for delivering societal value, drawing together expertise and resources to create alliances for collaborative innovation on sustainable development. University-Industry (U-I) partnerships are at the forefront of collaborative innovation, building transformative capabilities through catalysing leading-edge University research with Industrial excellence in real-world demonstration and scale-up. However, to fully exploit their potential to drive change, structured frameworks and processes are required to extract, exchange, and enhance knowledge into socio-technical system solutions. Roadmapping offers a powerful, systems-based framework and process to build strategic alignment within and between organisations, including U-I partnerships. Key strengths attributed to roadmapping are conversion of implicit, diverse, expert knowledge into explicit and integrated temporal visualisations of strategic intent. The approach builds trust and consensus through interactive dialogue guided by four core questions; Why is there a need to act? What outcomes are we aiming for? How will these be achieved? and by When? However, challenges in sustaining momentum during roadmapping implementation remain commonly reported by practitioners. While links between these challenges and i stakeholder change management have been recognised, the literature remains sparse on explicitly integrating the two remaining strategic questions of Who? and Where? in terms of stakeholders critical to roadmapping implementation. This research had addressed that gap through the introduction of Stakeholder Transition Analysis Roadmapping Templates (START). This novel diagnostic instrument and process support U-I practitioners to prioritise, evaluate and support the transition needs of stakeholders critical to roadmapping implementation and impact. Four stages of action research have been completed for this study, including twenty empirical experiments within U-I collaborative innovation partnerships focused on sustainable development. Analysis of experiment results informed the development, integration, and evaluation of START towards meeting a novel set of assessment criteria derived from established best practice literature. The findings from this research extend understanding of normal human reactions to change in stakeholders critical to roadmapping implementation and impact. Specifically, the novel concept of ‘Critical Stakeholder Readiness Levels’ draws on Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs) to demonstrate the integration of change leadership and technology management approaches. Moreover, by building capabilities to address implementation challenges, START supports practitioners to exploit the power of roadmapping as an engine for change in driving collaborative innovation on sustainable development.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Cambridge

Year dc:date.issued

2025

Author dc:creator

• Greenaway, Anna-Marie

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Phaal, Rob

• Roadmapping
• Collaborative Innovation
• Change Leadership
• U-I Partnerships
• Sustainable Development

Licence

• https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/cda774ef-3b09-43c5-9e66-ca617a4dca54/download
• https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Language dc:language

eng

DOI dc:identifier.doi

https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.120863

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/388573