A recurring virtual roundtable where IRI members compare notes on external partnerships, co-development, and open innovation practice. One signup covers every session in the series. Sessions run about an hour and are held virtually. Sign up once and you’re registered for the full series — a calendar invitation is emailed for each session, and your calendar updates automatically if a time changes.
Session Topics
September 16, 2026 — Building Consensus Around Technology Strategy (Joint with Innovation Excellence)
Without a clear strategy for which internal or external technologies to pursue, when to advance them, and why they matter to the business, even promising opportunities can stall. How do organizations build and maintain internal consensus and buy-in when pursuing technologies from early exploration to execution? What approaches help teams move from fragmented perspectives to shared direction? In this joint session between the Innovation Excellence and Open Innovation roundtables, members will share how they align internal teams around innovation efforts, from defining clear technology strategies to integrating stakeholders into governance processes.
October 21, 2026 — Building a Technology Scouting Capability
As the pace of technological change accelerates, many organizations are looking beyond internal expertise to identify emerging technologies and new sources of innovation. However, building an effective scouting capability remains a work in progress for many. How should companies build and organize their technology scouting capabilities? What processes, roles, external information sources, and enabling tools are needed? In this session, members will discuss practical approaches for finding relevant technologies amid information overload, lessons learned from scouting efforts, and how AI is beginning to enhance technology discovery.
November 18, 2026 — The Sustainability Innovation Ecosystem (Joint with Sustainability Roundtable)
As sustainability challenges become more complex, organizations are increasingly looking beyond their own walls for the technologies, expertise, materials, capabilities, and resources needed to innovate. Partnerships with suppliers, customers, startups, universities, government organizations, and other external stakeholders can help companies share risk, access new capabilities, accelerate development, and bring solutions to market more quickly. At the same time, tougher market conditions and increasing resource constraints are making collaboration and open innovation more strategically important. This joint discussion with IRI’s Sustainability Roundtable will explore how organizations are building and managing innovation ecosystems to address sustainability challenges—and how these partnerships can create new opportunities for technology transfer, business model innovation, and competitive advantage.
