Towards a Framework for Collaborative Innovation Heiko Duin 1 , Jacob Jaskov 2 , Alexander Hesmer 1 , and Klaus-Dieter Thoben 1 1 2 Learning Lab Denmark, Copenhagen, Denmark, E-Mail: jacob@jaskov.dk Abstract: This paper presents the Unified Collaborative Innovation Framework (UCIF) developed in the European Integrated Project Laboranova (Collaboration Environment for Strategic Innovation). The Framework aims at the support of the early stage innovation process by means of collaborative working environments. As implied by its name, UCIF is a framework, which by definition is a conceptual construct acting as the skeleton and boundary upon and within various entities and concepts are integrated, outlining a proposed solution. Keywords: Innovation Framework, Collaborative Innovation, Laboranova 1. Introduction Open Innovation as a concept has been coined by Henry Chesbrough who is a professor and executive director at the Center for Open Innovation at Berkeley [1]. The central idea of Open Innovation is that in a world consisting of widely distributed knowledge, organizations like enterprises can not afford to rely entirely on their own research. Instead they should buy or license processes or inventions (e.g. patents) from other companies. In addition, internal inventions which are not used in business could be taken outside the enterprise (e.g. by licensing or joint ventures). In contrast, closed innovation refers to processes that limit the use of internal knowledge within a company and make little or no use of external knowledge. The integration of end users and other stakeholders into innovation projects has proved to reduce business risks such as the invention and acceptance of products, services and applications. However, the integration of the end-users remains a difficult task. Thus a new methodological approach is required to cope with this problem. One solution is the concept of European Living Labs which offer a unique opportunity for organizations to include end-users and other stakeholders Please use the following format when citing this chapter: Volume 277; Computer-Aided Innovation (CAI); Gaetano Cascini; (Boston: Springer), pp. 193–204. D-28359 Bremen, Germany, E-Mail: {du, hes, tho}@biba.uni-bremen.de BIBA – Institute for Production and Logistics GmbH, Hochschulring 20, Duin, H., Jaskov, J., Hesmer, A. and Thoben, K.-D., 2008, in IFIP International Federation for Information Processing,