Perceiving societal value as the core of innovation management in public research and development organizations

Fostering the nation´s innovation is the key role of public research and development (R&D). However, there has been little research into how to manage innovation in public R&D. This paper reviews innovation management in the context of public R&D by focusing on the following four aspects: the mission of public R&D, publicly in-house R&D, collaborative projects, and the application of innovation management to public R&D. An innovation management framework underlining “societal value” as the core of management strategy is then proposed. Every functional unit in an organization poses its expectations about innovation. Therefore, strategies are launched in the proposed framework to spur each unit to perceive that expectations will be fulfilled if the entire organization reaches its innovation goals.