Creating value with innovation: From centre of expertise to the forest products industry

The innovation of products and processes is seen as a promising answer to many of the challenges faced by the forest products industry. Centres of expertise are used by governments and industry to create and transfer the innovative knowledge at the base of these innovations. The specific missions and objectives of forestry centres of expertise vary according to the sources of their funding and their targeted audience. However, we believe that even given the diversity of centres, a common objective can be extrapolated: that is to create value using research and innovation. The great number and varied nature of centres of expertise in the forest products industry illustrate their importance for the diverse actors of the industry. Their role, and in particular their role in the Canadian industry, is analyzed in this paper from the perspectives of innovation and value. An innovation value matrix is presented to describe the innovation process from the perspective of the value that is created and perceived by the various actors of the innovation process. Based on exploratory interviews with two centres of expertise dedicated to the industry, this model includes findings from other authors and proposes a new perceptive related to the value perceived and effected by the actors involved in an innovation process. Through the use of the innovation value matrix the authors examine the different actors' understanding of innovation and value. The authors believe that, by improving the understanding of the concept of value creation from innovative knowledge, centres of expertise can develop a better understanding of their own processes and in turn develop better tools to transfer knowledge so that it is used to create effective value for the forest products industry.