Innovation management processes for academic research

Academic research is promoting the free mind of the genius. The intention is to discover ground breaking findings in very early phases of the innovation process. The researchers consider their creativity to be dependent on freedom and openness. Nevertheless, today´s scientific landscape is a bit different from this. Research institutions are large and many of them conduct project business. Research projects need to be planned in a professional way, research outcomes need to be achieved. A more or less professional innovation process has to guarantee a constant flow of projects and results. This is not only mandatory to finance the work of the research institution, but also due to the expectations of the society towards science. The challenge is to use professional innovation processes without destroying creativity and freedom. Ideas need to have a chance to result into a research project and a respective innovative finding. Scientists need to be protected from too much administration and restrictions. Therefore, innovation processes for academic research need to be lean, simple, efficient and effective. This paper presents ideas for such processes and tools. The focus is the early phase of transferring an innovative idea into a funding project. Results and experiences from the application in a research group focusing on applied engineering sciences are evaluated.