Purpose – In the current hyper-connected world, the success of a firm is increasingly dependent on the activities of other active players within the same environment. It is therefore important to understand how to orchestrate ecosystems made up of multiple organizations, institutions and other intermediaries to produce continuous streams of innovation. The paper suggests a potential orchestrator role for academics within this scenario.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper draws on the experience of an applied research centre in Italy. We begin by describing the research centre, the collaborative research processes through which it accomplishes its activities, how it funds them, and the interorganizational results that it has achieved in seven years of practice. Reflecting on the experience of this research centre, we underline not only the key role that academics can play as knowledge management experts, but also the specific research design allowing them to be effective in orchestrating ecosystem innovation.
Originality/value – The analysis of the research centre outlines two main rationales supporting the key role of academics within an innovation ecosystem. The first rationale is associated with the fact that academics are in an independent position, which is neutral and represents a middle ground between the different organizations that share knowledge to ignite and sustain innovation at an ecosystem level. The second rationale is associated with the levels of compliance and complementarity that academics have with the main purposes forwhichknowledge within an innovation ecosystem is created and leveraged.
Practical implications – Two ‘design’ choices seem necessary to materialize the potential key orchestrator role of academics: (i) the extensive use of multiple approaches of collaborative research; (ii) the creation and maintenance of a knowledge platform allowing academics to manage and to progressively diffuse and leverage the ecosystem-based learning mechanisms underlying each innovation effort.
Keywords – Innovation ecosystems, Orchestration, Knowledge management