The INNOVATION PROPENSITY QUOTIENT (IPQ) tool: amplify Innovation Culture in Height Consortium HEIs
Supporting KIC's
Domain: Domain 1 – Fostering institutional engagement and change.
Have a clear description of the objectives and purposes
- To map, measure and monitor the innovation potential, culture, and performance measure (i.e., innovation culture quotient) of the four institutions (university of Central Lancashire (UCLan) UK, Özyeğin University, Malta College of Art, Science and Technology (MCAST) and UCLan Cyprus), to compare the pre-and post-training performance of the individuals undergoing training with elements of innovation and enterprise.
- The purpose was to amplify the impact of knowledge exchange on individual and organisational performance.
Have a clear description of the actions/activities taken.
- A survey was designed to collect and analyse data, both at individual, team, and organisational levels. The survey measured, mapped, monitored, and modelled how the actions related to the interlinked seven components of innovation culture aimed at amplifying the internal culture drive performance as measured externally by, amongst others, the proposed Knowledge Exchange Framework for the UK Higher Education.
- Focus group discussions were carried out at appropriate intervals to have a consensus on the research findings and to disseminate the results for further exploitation in real-world scenarios.
How was the practice implemented?
Surveys and facilitated workshops helped the individuals and teams to understand the strategic challenges of the interlinked seven components embedded into individual and institutional management practices. Its discussions around the clear and practical methodology of mapping, measuring, and monitoring the individual and interlinked scoring of the seven components helped the individuals and teams to align their actions to the performance. The outcome was impressive, with several examples shared by the HEIght consortium participants on the strategic changes undertaken by the individuals or institutions in each of the seven components of an innovation culture to act on the increased ability to innovate effectively.
What does it involve? Why? When did you implement it?
It involves measuring innovation culture objectively with the seven interlinked components.
Mapping, measuring, and monitoring the individuals, teams, or institutions’ Innovation and Enterprise performance objectively allows them to untangle strategic challenges and deliver expected outcomes, team alignment, business innovation and actions for improved performance.
The Innovation Propensity Quotient (IPQ) tool was successfully applied on two occasions: (i) for the students and teams undergoing training with the elements of Innovation and Enterprise. The students’ performances were measured pre and post-training to understand the change in their IPQ scores and (ii) for the staff to measure and understand the incremental performance in Innovation in two consecutive years.
Briefly describe the methodological approach step-by-step so that it can be easily understood and replicated by others – the steps can be in narrative form or as bullet points.
A survey instrument of appropriate innovation attributes (the seven interlinked components of innovation) was prepared concerning relevant survey instruments in Innovation in HEIs at the European regional level.
Likert-type scale questionnaire was used to self-report performance in Innovation. The scores identified the respondents’ performance.
The findings were discussed using the focus group discussion technique with the respondents to help them untangle strategic challenges and deliver team alignment, business innovation and actions from ideas.
What was learned through the implementation of the practice
The survey was instrumental in identifying the Innovation Culture Quotient (ICQ) and the KE Performance in the HEIGHT Consortium, including the scores of the key factors (values, behaviours, climate, resources, processes, performance, and innovation role), and how these factors relate to Knowledge Exchange. The heat map of four HEIs was brainstormed to make new ideas useful to increase the potential of institutional innovation (M2).
The UCLan AMPLIFY team leverage HEInnovate self-assessments through the consortium-wide workshop and additional research using the Amplify I&E instrument developed and validated at UCLan Preston.
Numbers are not large enough to make comparisons across or within HEIs, but as a pilot for 3 HEIs (other than UCLan UK), is has been very successful. For UCLan UK, the survey results will be used to compare the earlier and get insights into what is changed/unchanged.
Context
Universities want to produce future managers with more innovation capabilitiesand enterprise to address business and societal challenges. Universities are challenged to map, measure and monitor the IPQ of individuals, teams and the organisation to help them nature the culture of innovation. The tool was thus created and tested to amplify Innovation Culture in Height Consortium HEIs. It successfully measured the individuals, teams and organisations’ innovationperformance and predicted strengths and weaknesses.
Audiences
AMPLIFY study revealed that Innovation could be conceived and developed, leading to a successful outcome. It requires a deliberate and serendipitous action to lead to new or increased creation to impact individuals, institutions, and the surrounding communities.
The IPQ tool pinpoints innovation strengths and weaknesses and reliably predicts the performance, scoring against the indicators of the seven interconnected components of the innovation culture. The community, including individuals, teams, and institutions can map, measure, and monitor their acceleration towards innovation against the seven components of the Innovation culture to understand their performance, represented by quantitative scores in individual components and a score that represent collective performance, which is called Innovation Propensity Quotient (IPQ).
The IPQ tool was successfully applied on two occasions: (i) for the students and teams undergoing training with the elements of Innovation and Enterprise, and (ii) for the staff to see the incremental performance in Innovation in two consecutive years.
Key outcomes
HEIght Consortium members collaborated to create and validate two instruments that measure innovation performance. These tools complement the HEInnovate self-reflection tool for Higher Education Institutions and have potential for widespread use. The University of Central Lancashire led a study that established the Innovation Culture Quotients (ICQ) across four higher education institutions by evaluating staff perceptions of innovation cultures. The ICQ framework informed the National Centre for Enterprise Education’s team leadership development program offered to staff across the group. Another instrument was developed to identify individuals’ Innovation Propensity Quotients (IPQ), tested among students participating in enterprise and entrepreneurship training across four countries. Both instruments have potential applications in the education sector.
Key success factors / How to replicate / Sustainability mechanism
The study was successful in (i) developing a robust instrument to measure Innovation culture, (ii) it revealed insights to enable evidence-based decision-making inside the university – across all levels (individuals, teams, schools & universities), (iii) providing objective evidence to support the institutional environment for innovation. It unearths insights to help support impact narratives for innovation and enterprise. It also allows focusing on how and where the academic outputs can be improved/achieved. It can be used to direct potential innovation projects and support the innovation efforts of the HEIs. The instrument is broad enough to be replicated by individuals, teams, and institutions. However, the respondents’ context (e.g., demographics) is crucial when the instrument is used to compare the performance of teams and institutions over two periods. Respondent’s involvement in identifying the strategic challenges and delivering actions against the ideas generated through understanding the scores and mapping the innovation culture quotient is critical for successfully amplifying innovation culture.
Challenges
The criteria used in the tool could be interpreted differently in different context, making one team not comparable to the other, however, the tool would generate IPQ that could be compared.