Open Innovation Consortium launches with NHS Joint Venture

The Third Open Innovation Practitioners Consortium launched in Cambridge with a joint venture linking to the NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement on November 22nd.

Top companies from across Europe pooled their thinking on how Open Innovation could help address the challenges of the Health and Wellness Agenda. Working with Expert witnesses from the Centre for Healthcare leadership at the the University of Cambridge, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea as well as Medimmune the exercise was designed to chime with an upcoming agenda of the European Commission in 2012.

Buoyed by the success of this meeting, members of the Consortium which inlcude: GSK, Coloplast, Friesland Campina, Google and Deutsche Telekom look forward to the next meeting which will be hosted by Google in Zurich in February.

For futher informaiton visit: http://www.cfbi.com/index_files/openinnovation.htm

3rd Microfluidics Consortium adds a European Open Day to its JnJ visit

The 3rd European Microfluidics Consortium meets in closed session at Johnson and Johnson's Beerse 1 site in Belgium on October 11th to work on "Personalized Medicine" .. as an experiment we have added to this a "European Open Day" on October 12th where invited guests can come and engage with members on the debates we are stimulating around

- Standards
- Flow chemistry
- Diagnostics


For further information visit http://www.cfbi.com/index_files/mf32landingpage.htm

We plan a similar Open Day in the USA in Spring 2012

Open Innovation Consortium Hosted by Airbus

One June 29/30 the 2nd Open Innovation Practitioners Consortium is to be hosted by Airbus in Toulouse.

Our theme is 'Internal Processes for Open Innovation' and inspired by case studies from DSM, Philips and Airbus itself  the group will be working on identifying internal barriers to Open Innovation and dealing with them. The Consortium will also be reviewing its experience with the OI Maturity model which we have developed with the help of Professor Ellen Enkel of Zeppelin University.

We are also trying to arrange a tour of the A380 manufacturing facility afterwards - which rumour has it  is pretty spectacular!

Third Microfluidics Consortium to launch in Cambridge June 9

CfBI is delighted to announce that its highly successful Microfluidics Consortium will enter its 3rd year on June 9th with a launch meeting in Cambridge.


Following the Japan Study Tour in MF2 we have decided to drop the word 'European' from the title and open our doors to members from around the world. MF3 has committed to holding one of its meetings in the upcoming annual cycle in the USA.

Alongside our work on standards for interconnects and chip holders MF3 will also get more involved in single cell assays and tissue engineeering as well as new formats for diagnostics and high throughput screening.

We are delighted to have engaged NICE (National Institute for Healthcare and Clinical Excellence) and the Medical Research Council in our meeting on June 9th. These are important stakeholders who can help MF3 with its mission 'to grow the market from Microfluidics enabled solutions to the worlds 'Grand Challenges'

Open Innovation Practioners Consortium looking at OI beyond the First World

The Second Open Innovation Practitioners Consortium will be hosted by Friesland Campina in Amersfoort Holland on May 9/10. Our theme for this meeting is "Open Innovation Beyond the First World" and we will be hearing cases from Africa, India and the Pacific Rim with interactive sessions designed to help the consortium identify and apply best practise.


The Third Open Innovation Practitioners Consortium starts in October.

Father of MEMS to address European Microfluidics Consortium

Benedetto Vigna (the 'father' of MEMS) will address CfBI's MF2 European Microfluidics Consortium when it visits Milan on April 29. He will tell the story of the highs and lows of how ST got into microfluidics.

Other presenters include Olivetti Research, Silicon Biosystems and ETH Zurich.

This will be the last meeting of the current MF2 programme. A new MF3 consortium launches in June and its first meeting will be in Cambridge, UK

Microfluidics Consortium - Study Tour to Japan

Inspired by meeting Japanese visitors at our meeting in Groningen last year, the 2nd European Microfluidics Consortium has decided to organise a study tour for its members to visit Japan in the week of May 9-13.

With help from the British Consulate in Osaka, Professor Yoshinobu Baba of Nagoya University and others  the consortium will visit potential partners with microfluidics embedded projects in areas as diverse as:

- Point of Care diagnostics

- Environmental sensors

- Novel manufacture (eg of artificial organs using stem cells)

- Droplet based chemical synthesis

For further information contact ceo@cfbi.com

Open Innovation Practitioners Consortium Meeting at LEGO..

..is coming together nicely.

We are delighed to have case studies from: 

Professor Erkko Auttio (Qinetiq professor of Entrepreneurship at Imperial College)
Chris Winter (ex BT Brightstar, now New Venture Partners)
Paal Smith-Meyer (LEGO)
Rick Weilens (Nine Sigma)

Professor Ellen Enkel of Zeppelin University will present her work profiling the blue chip members of the consortium for their Open Innovation 'Maturity'


The consortium meeting is followed by the European Innovation Conference eic2011.com at the same venue.

Tell your friends!!

Reflections on Tetra Pak

CfBI had an excellent meeting of the Open Innovation Practitioners' Consortium on Monday and Tuesday, hosted by Tetra Pak in Lund, Sweden. Our theme was 'co-innovation' and members of the consortium including Friesland Campina, Philips and Tetra Pak presented cases to get the discussion going.

John Bell of Philips presented work that he and Ellen Enkel of Zeppelin University had been doing to measure the 'readiness' for Open Innovation in a range of Consortium member companies.

Over dinner Sigvald Harryson  from the Copenhagen  Business School told members of the consortium about his experience with Porsche stimulating a competition for innovation in the latest generation of brakes.

We had a fun tour of the production facilities (machines which make and fill Tetra Paks at 5 per second) and of their product gallery (did you know that in India they put Whiskey in Tetra Paks?!)

The next meeting of the Open Innovation Consortium will be hosted by LEGO in Billund on March 28/29 and will be co-located with the European Innovation Conference.

 In the meantim the European Microfluidics Consortium meets in Zurich on February 24/25

Centre for Business Innovation is now a 'dot com'

We have moved from www.cfbi.co.uk to www.cfbi.com (the old site still works but we are migrating all inbound links to the new one.