The International Space Station is a collaborative innovation project that involves multiple countries working together to explore space. The project has been in operation since 1998 and has involved 240 individuals from 19 countries.

Collaborative innovation is the process of multiple employees or teams combining their knowledge, skills, experience and resources to create or improve upon a solution for a common benefit.

So, open innovation is broader than collaborative innovation because it does not focus on the same problem. Open innovation concerns all the means that can be used by a firm to gain access to technology whereas collaborative innovation focuses on a way for firms to create a new technology and artifact.

Successful collaborative innovation requires a non-adversarial mind-set, a multi-level and multi-functional organizational approach, the ability to learn to speak “another language,” new metrics, and the willingness to share intellectual property.