A virtual reality-enabled framework to promote the use of foresight innovation between universities and business

Abstract

This thesis investigates how foresight innovation practices benefit from the use of immersive technologies with the aim to enhance collaboration and innovation-based activities between universities and business. Following an extensive systematic literature review, the three areas of theory, context and technology were identified as essential when researching this area.

The science fiction prototyping approach, Diegetic Innovation Templating (DIT) was identified as the foundational theory in support of this research. The context for where the theory was applied relied upon organisations that had a shared understanding for how collaboration should take place. This was established during the research as a new holistic approach that combined both Open Foresight and Open Innovation, named the Open Foresight Innovation Paradigm (OFIP). Virtual reality was identified as a suitable enabling technology due to its ability to lower technological barriers, encouraging collaboration and, by extension, innovation to take place within innovation workshops conducted using an immersive digital innovation lab.

Upon completion, the Theory, Context, and Technology (TCT) Taxonomy was established, which when combined with findings drawn from subject matter expert interviews, resulted in the specialised theoretical framework, named Digital Innovation Templating in Virtual Reality (DITVR).

DITVR was formed using a theoretical foundation that informed three components; the DITVR process, the 3D Innovation Template (3D-IT) and the Diegetic Gap in VR (DIGVR) feasibility assessment.

Collectively, these components were used through a series of innovation workshops to establish their validity using a between subjects experimental design. Observational data was collected during the innovation workshops and compared with participant questionnaire responses to understand the benefits that could be achieved through the use of DITVR.

The findings were that DITVR enhanced collaboration by enabling the sharing of ideas between participants using the DITVR process while also establishing the form that a valid 3D-IT should take when created in VR. The innovation outcomes were then assessed for feasibility using the DIGVR metric, establishing it’s value specifically in the context of University to Business (U2B) collaboration and the proposal to rename it as the Techno-Conceptual Gap (TCG) metric wherever used in the future.

Future research in this area should look at the quantitative dimension with the aim to develop DITVR to be generalised for application across a wider range of contexts while identifying other enabling technologies that could be used in place of VR.

Date of Award	2025
Original language	English