Scouting function design and implementation (a pilot)

This report represents the SMILE WP2, D2.2 delivery “Scouting function design and
implementation at Aalborg University (a pilot)”. The report concerns scouting for knowledge and research-based opportunities for innovation and start-ups at Aalborg University, Denmark. The purpose of the work is to serve as inspiration for further research and design of scouting functions in the SMILE partner universities and beyond.
We make initial investigations into the current ways scouting happens (or not happens) at the department of Materials and Production, and the way AAU Innovation scout university-wide. The methodology on this initial study includes a preliminary literature study and an empirical investigation including key actors at the department and at AAU Innovation to uncover experience from the target areas at Aalborg University. The results lead us to conclude that scouting is a multiple function consisting of many different efforts and heavily carried by organisational culture. This means that we must expect that implementing the emerging ideas/plans for improving the scouting function in the department is a more lengthy journey than expected and little visible implementation have thus been evidenced within the first phase of the SMILE project. We describe the preliminary sketch of a (pilot) design of a scouting function in the department of Materials and Production (in collaboration with AAU Innovation) and point to the things that has already been implemented.