Open Innovation for the Construction Sector: Concept Overview and Test Bed Development to Boost Energy-Efficient Solutions

Open innovation has recently emerged as an important concept in both academic research and industrial practice, and it is now also becoming increasingly important in the public policy field due to the innovation challenges in different domains, such as climate change, sustainability, and growth to name a few, but only in some value chains (i.e., automotive, manufacturing, aerospace). According to a report by McKinsey and Co., the construction industry lags behind others in adopting innovations; in fact, less than 1% of the construction industry’s revenue goes back into technology research and development. This work focuses on the current debate on the underdeveloped application of the open innovation (OI) approach to the construction sector. Namely, the foundational question is whether the OI model can be the answer to boosting innovation for the decarbonization of buildings. The research goal is to go a step further by analyzing its internal effectiveness, focusing on introducing and defining the Open Innovation Test Bed (OITB) concept. The study provides a systematic and bibliometric literature review of OI starting from a critical analysis of the concept definition and the evolution of the paradigm from the initial application to the first declination for the construction sector. All the steps analyzed allowed us to make an overall and comprehensive review of the OI concept, which is usually applied to other sectors, considering the ecosystem as the most effective declination of the OI paradigm for OITB development for building envelope solutions, thus providing answers to the two objectives identified in the introduction. Finally, the limitations of prior OI studies and the challenges for the OITB new construction paradigm are discussed, and we make recommendations for future opportunities and approach development to tackle and boost energy-efficient envelope solutions for the construction industries.