Abstract:

Innovation, both as a field of study and as a practical discipline, has gained considerable traction over the past 15 years. In fact, as organizations become broader and more complex, the need for a systematic approach to new product, service or business development techniques strengthens accordingly. This idea (by Oana-Maria Pop, Senior Editor of Innovation Management) can be extended to university research groups in which innovation is a crucial point: especially for the formation of doctorates.

In this context, it is similar worth noticing that similar to the worldwide ISO, at the European level, Brussels-based CEN (the European Committee for Standardization) is the solely recognized organization for the planning drafting and adoption of European Standards in all major areas of business except electro-technology and telecommunications. Concretely, on July, 2013, was published the UNE-CEN/TS 16555-1:2013, the European Standard for Innovation Management.

This Technical Specification provides guidance on establishing and maintaining an innovation management system (IMS). It is applicable to all public and private organisations regardless of sector, type or size. This document provides guidance on: understanding the context of the organisation; establishing the leadership and commitment of top management; planning for innovation success; identifying and fostering innovation enablers/driving factors; developing the innovation management process; evaluating and improving the performance of the innovation management system; and understanding and using innovation management techniques.
By using this document, organisations can increase their awareness of the value of an IMS, establish such a system, expand their capacity for innovation, and ultimately generate more value for the organisation and its interested parties. Since the innovation management system outlined in this document follows the PDCA structure (plan-do-check-act), so it can be integrated within other standardised business management systems existing in the organisations.

In this context, EIDOS, a Materials Science research group (UPV/EHU, University of the Basque Country), has been developing its own management style, inspired by the EFQM model. In fact, we have identified the formation of the doctorates as an operational process, and the technology and equipments management as a supporting process related to it. Now, the standard UNE-CEN/TS 16555-1:2013 has made us substitute the later one, by a new process: the innovation management. It is one the latest improvement actions implemented by EIDOS in order to get better results, in accordance with the EFQM spirit of excellence. Thus, this work presents the introduction of the process “Innovation management” in our process map, and its connection to the formation of doctorates.

Keywords:

Innovation, doctorates, processes, EFQM.