Innovation in Higher Education: From Contributor to Driver of Internet-Based Service Innovation

As largely publicly run and funded institutions, universities are being pressured by their host governments to do more with fewer resources, and thus are being urged to innovate. Given their public character, universities are expected to adopt processes and practices that are transparent and socially accountable, which makes the integration of (open) knowledge from external sources a strategic imperative. That being said, little is yet known about how higher education institutions globally are resorting to open innovation to address increasingly complex technical and institutional environments. This paper contributes the growing literature on open innovation within services and addresses the existing knowledge gap by analysing the development of a virtual mobility master’s program at a leading research-intensive university based in the Nordic countries.