The contemporary industrial landscape is characterised by strong, international competition. Governments have for quite some time focused on how investments in research and development (R&D) may enable their economies to become more knowledge-based and better positioned in this global division of labour. But the link between input in the form of R&D and output in the form of value creation is not a straightforward one. The universities, higher education institutions and research institutes of individual countries can only be the best within a limited number of areas. At the same time, modern products and production processes are becoming increasingly complex, and incorporate technologies from many such domains. In our efforts to stimulate industrial creativity, we are forced to recognise that much of the technological basis for this creativity will come from foreign research communities, and materialise as new products or production processes by way of collaboration with customers and suppliers located abroad. In the words of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, we have entered an era of 'global open innovation'.
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