Gergana Petrova Romanova

Short presentation

In my PhD, I explore the phenomena of university-industry collaborations, applying innovation management and organizational theory lenses. In the qualitative investigation I am conducting, I collect data on the level of the management of the university and at a collaborative project level – projects where university scientists collaborate on research projects with industry partners. Interviews with project participants and observations conducted during collaborative project meetings and advisory board meetings comprise the larger chunk of my data set. However, initially I started by looking at the local institutional settings to understand how collaborations are perceived, initiated and supported. As I delve into the individual research projects, I aim to understand how university-industry collaborative research projects are managed in practice. I base my individual articles of the dissertation on these different empirical settings and points. As this is an inductive study and I have let the data to lead the process of investigation, I have currently found the notion of openness to guide my research and further data collection. Openness, I found, plays out in fascinating ways when exploring the way middle and top management work towards developing university strategy with focus on the three missions of the university, and particularly on the third mission of innovation and creating impact to society. Additionally, I am interested in understanding how open innovation and opens science are practiced in the collaboration between scientists and their industry partners in the individual projects. 

Teaching

I teach in the MSc course of Entrepreneurship and Innovation and the Food Innovation & Entrepreneurship course (part of the MSc in Integrated Food Studies). The topics I cover span across Business Models, Business Model Canvas, Lean Start-up Approach, Venture Financing and Business Planning.

Supervision

I co-supervise MSc students across natural science fields who work on their Projects In Practice and master’s theses with focus on innovation & entrepreneurship.