Accelerated innovation in crises: The role of collaboration in the development of alternative ventilators during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

This article discusses the need for accelerated innovation in crisis situations and argues that collaboration plays an important role in enabling such acceleration. The central research question is: How can innovation efforts during crises be accelerated, and what role does collaboration play? We draw on a phenomenon-driven, in-depth qualitative case study of seven initiatives that have developed alternative ventilators in the Netherlands during the COVID-19 crisis. Our results highlight how the COVID-19 pandemic has created a relatively short crisis window of opportunity for accelerated innovation processes that is driven by the urgency to develop solutions to the challenge at hand. Importantly, we show that when collaborative initiatives join other collaborative initiatives— what we define as nested collaboration—a forum for coordinated knowledge and resource exchange between the initiatives is created, increasing the potential for learning and accelerating the innovation process. Finally, we find that purpose is an important intermediating mechanism to accelerate innovation as it enables non-competitive collaboration between the initiatives in favor of the public good. Our results have important implications for accelerated innovation processes to achieve societal missions, goals, or challenges.