VALUE CO-CREATION FROM ACADEMIA-BUSINESS PARTNERSHIPS

Today's global challenges require new thinking, new tools, and new approaches able to drive collaborative work and creation of value for all stakeholders. The co-creation of innovation between academia and organizations plays an important role in this context. The purpose of this paper is to explore the impacts of the implementation of co-creation methodologies in the academia-business context. This study examines how students and organizations can benefit from participating in innovation co-creation processes, using a Portuguese higher education institution - the Polytechnic Institute of Coimbra, as a case study. The empirical research was done through the questionnaire survey technique. The results give evidence that both students and organizations demonstrate high levels of satisfaction with the program and recognize that it is a powerful instrument to improve the effectiveness of academia-business collaboration and to promote the development of transversal skills which plays an important role in the educational process and in the growth of organizations.