A paper is accepted at the 15th International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Information Retrieval
- Title: Challenges in Implementing a University-based Innovation Search Engine
- Authors: Arman Arzani, Marcus Handte, Pedro José Marrón
- Abstract: In universities, technology transfer plays an important role in the joint development and dissemination of knowledge as a product that benefits society through innovation. In order to facilitate knowledge transfer, many universities hire innovation coaches that employ a scouting process to identify faculty members and students who possess the requisite knowledge, expertise, and potential to establish startups. Since there is no systematic approach to measure the innovation potential of university members based on their academic activities, the scouting process is typically subjective and relies heavily on the experience of the innovation coaches. In this paper, we motivate the need for INSE (INnovation Search Engine) to support innovation coaches during their search for innovation potential at a university. After discussing the information needs of the scouting process, we outline a basic system architecture to support it, and we identify a number of research challenges. Our aim is to motivate vigorous research in this area by illustrating the need for novel, data-driven approaches towards effective innovation scouting and successful knowledge transfer.