Prof. Florin Paun
Director in France, practitioner and theoretician of the
evolutions of the innovation models and tools
France

My name is PhD. Florin Paun, innovation
Director in France, practitioner and
theoretician of the evolutions of the
innovation models and tools, I succeeded
to encourage the comprehension of the
human factors and behaviors during the
collaborative processes as innovation,
building thus bridges between the
world of practitioners and the world
of scientists and economists.

My scientific work on Innovation Economics and
Technology Transfer, based on more of 200 project
I worked on, gained worldwide recognition and
put in light the emergence of a new innovation
French model .In addition to that , I had completed
the theories of two Nobel Prize Winners (Stiglitz, J.,
Sen. A) after having applied and adapted them to
the highly collaborative processes like innovation.
My newly developed and implemented strategies
and tools aim is to support the creation of the
shared value between research laboratories, SMEs,
multinationals and regions with more than 70
technology transfer agreements succeeded. I have
been Innovation director in aerospace sector in
France (former Deputy Innovation Director at
ONERA and Strategy and Development Director
at the Competitive Pole SAFE – PACA region). I
started my career in the aerospace research being
specialized in structures and multifunctional
materials (15 scientific articles, 4 patents). I received
my Education at the Aerospace Faculty in Bucharest,
in Ecole Polytechnique (Palaiseau, Grand Paris) and I
did my PhD. in Mechanical Engineering in Toulouse
(ENSICA) . Finally I had completed my education
with an Executive Certificate in Management
and Leadership at MIT Sloan (United States). As
serial entrepreneur and Business Angel (Celidea,
Progonline.com…) I am currently also President
and co-founder of the French Start-up Xvaluator.

As French Romanian innovation leader, I am also one of the 10
French experts and one of the 3 Romanian experts in the Pilot
Jury of the European Council of Innovation.
If we integrate the systems of the two references TRL and
DRL, one for the Tech-Push (TRL) approach and the other for
the Market-Pull (DRL) approach, we are able to determine the
optimum conditions (the sum of the two scales being equal to
or greater than 9) and the ideal period for a technology transfer
or collaboration agreement even for disruptive innovation to
be signed in an efficient way for all the partners.
Figure : Various uses and adaptations in France of the DRL-TRL
tool for accelerating disruptive innovation
Florin main goals and objectives for 2021 and beyond
PhD. Florin Paun: I would like to share more of my knowledge
in order to support wise actions influencing micro, meso and
macroeconomic evolutions.
Currently, I have the joy to conceive, launch and supervised only
Innovation Projects that I like while working with colleagues . I
appreciate; A radar simulator, a Virtual Pilot Instructor based
on AI explainable are some of these Projects for Secapem /
Group Rafaut. I also have the pleasure to be Technology Coach
for the Start-Ups members of the IoT Tribe Accelerator within
Space Endeavour UE funded Project where I’m working for SAFE
Competitiveness Cluster in PACA region in France.
Obviously, I’m proud to continue my contributions to the most
amazing and evolving Innovation Instrument that. In my opinion,
UE highly support, the European Innovation Council and for
which I do hope I will be more intensively useful…
I could resume herby my specific intended contributions:
a). Hybridization of Tech-Push and Market-Pull through the
innovative tool DRL-TRL
b). Collaborative Innovation, Open Innovation as a state of mind
of all RH (contract of shared risk and benefice)
c). « Agilization» and thus acceleration in specific context and
timingd ). «Open Qualifiquation » of innovation sources, means,
contexts
To finish, I would like here to recall the European Commissioner
Theirry Breton who sets the objectives and the common ambition
for Europe which I’m fully on line :
«Beyond the health emergency, which remains our current
priority, this crisis accelerates changes in the world, in our way
of living and producing, in an age of digitalizationof innovative
ecosystems The role of Competitiveness Poles to accelerate
innovation with SMEs in France will be presented by resuming
the specific tools for compensating asymmetries, “DRL/TRL”,
the first “Ecosystem Charte of Open Innovation” signed in PACA
region, “Shared Risk and Benefits Contract” part of technology
transfer guide (PAUN, 2016).
Future recommendations future Recommendations
support the ecosystem of technology, innovation, and
entrepreneurship
The challenges of creating the future Europe of disruptive
innovation will be able to integrate these new tools for
accelerating and, above all, agilizing innovation processes at
the heart of a new paradigm of collaborative innovation using
budgets and criteria for qualifying and financing disruptive
innovation thanks to “Agile Demo-Tech Thinking” (Paun, 2018). We
integrate the ability to anticipate and change business models,
sectors or regions by following “multi-functional innovation
trajectories” (not just “one-shot innovations”).
First, we need to Speed up the innovation cycle through
collaborative (open innovation) processes.
While neoclassical currents did not incorporate the importance
of technical progress in their approaches, Schumpeter proposed
an analysis of innovation that emphasizes the overlapping of
economic growth trends and the different cycles of industrial
innovation according, in particular, to their variations in
magnitude: Kondratiev’s long cycles, lasting from 50 to 60 years
owing to technology change (for example, the steam engine in
the 18th century) lead to radical innovation and diffusion in all
segments of the economy, Juglar’s cycles (1862, Juglar) spanning
6 to 8 years, are due to variations in investment, Kitchin cycles
(1923, Kitchin), lasting from 3 to 5 years, are linked to variations
in inventories, without generating economic crises.
According to Schumpeter, without innovation the economy
stagnates and does not generate growth because there is a lack
of risk-taking and a dearth of entrepreneurship. He therefore
offered up a dynamic analysis of the evolution of the economy
when conditions for change have been identified, at the heart
of which entrepreneurs “create without letup because they
cannot do otherwise.”
Each industrial cycle is unique and generates growth over long
paths of technological maturation. These paths are followed by
a slowdown in growth and the emergence of new innovations,
thereby creating the conditions for new economic growth (for
example, in textiles and iron in the 18th century, steam engines,
rail and steel in the19th century, electricity, chemistry and internal
combustion engines in the 20th century). Entrepreneurs play an
instrumental role in this “creative destruction” (Schumpeter)
process, which allows the economy to rejuvenate itself through
successive industrial revolutions. The evolution is therefore
cyclical, taking place in simultaneous waves, together with a
phase of expansion through the appearance, as “innovation
clusters”, of new productive combinations as well as of new
enterprises (suppliers, customers, and then imitators) and new
markets.

There is a tendency on the part of both industrialists and
governments not to want to leave to chance the emergence
of new innovationcycles (long waves of innovation). Thus,
resources are being mustered to identify flagship technologies
capable of speeding up innovation processes (technology
intelligence). Indeed, it is during phases of growth and
expansion, at the beginning of each new cycle of innovation,
that players can envisage significant margins and even
contribute to setting new benchmarks so as to establish
themselves as leaders in new markets.
Entrepreneurs are not always driven by the lure of profit, but
also by irrational reasons such as the search for recognition
and power, the desire to win or the joy of creating value.
These selfsame values are to be found today in the reasons
that underpin the desire of intra-preneurs within large groups
to promote open innovation. That entails innovating together
within ecosystems made up of start-ups and SMEs.
Here are some examples of open innovation mechanisms
currently at work: the innovative approach of the Bizlab,
the A3 accelerator and the use of the “HYPE” platform for
collaborative innovation within Airbus; the integration of
start-ups into the research and innovation programmers of
major aeronautical groups thanks to the Starburst and Pegase
Croissance accelerators, the Aerospace Valley Business Nursery
or the joint accelerator at BPI and GIFAS.
Schumpeter refers to “innovation clusters”, “legions of
entrepreneurial troops” and “cluster shot” to emphasize that
change drives change. Change succeeds in spreading and
establishing itself as a new cycle of innovation.
In continuation of Schumpeter’s insights and expectations
about the power of innovative ecosystems and the role
of collaboration in innovation processes, strategies for
acceleratinginnovation are nowadays being designed by also
integrating the practice of open innovation, collaborative
processes, etc., par excellence, with a view to making innovation
faster. These practices include a great many players.
Innovation cycles are becoming increasingly hybrid, thereby
integrating both supply and demand factors through
collaborative innovation processes with customers, consumers
and technology providers. The hybrid nature of these cycles
is due to variations in their magnitude over time and to the
overlapping of traditional sector wide innovation trajectories
and of functional innovation trajectories, particularly due to
the emergence of new fields encompassing mobility, which
generally combine several sectors to meet new uses and needs.
We can thus identify short cycles of sector-wide innovation.
Some start-ups and SMEs are experimenting with short cycles
of innovation and providing true proof-of concept (POC) to large
groups. The latter are capable of integrating innovations from
several business segments (e. g. electric cars or self-driving cars) into
intermediate innovation cycles, but also of developing partnerships
over longer innovation cycles, as is the case for investments in
artificial intelligence.
This type of cycle is built through collaborative innovation
ecosystems (large groups, territories, institutions, SMEs, midsized companies, start-ups) that together generate changes in
functional innovation trajectories. These cycles therefore crop up
amid what can be properly described as augmented sectors such
as “mobility”, which must concurrently integrate the trajectories
of innovations made in the automotive sector, land use (Smart
Cities), flow management (Smart Grids), digital, and health and
environment, etc.
Unlike Schumpeter’s representation, innovation no longer seems
to accelerate in an homogeneous manner. Indeed, a short-cycle,
sector-wide innovation trajectory on the part of an SME can,
through the implementation of collaborative tools, tax and
organizational incentives, develop into a multi-sector innovation
trajectory (cross-fertilization), in partnership with a large group
outside its original segment. This evolution can also be functional
and thus contribute to radical innovations in augmented sectors.
In conclusion, today, the cycles of radical innovation mentioned by
Schumpeter are being speeded up by the processes of collaborative,
open innovation and porosity across various sectors. Approaches
oriented towards the development of agile technological
demonstrators will further accelerate these trends.
Instead of trying to force the acceleration of innovation without
understanding the impacts on the acceleration of innovation
cycles and on the economic, social and environment impacts, it
is needed a new view and holistic approach of «agilisation » of
innovation processes and organizations mobilizing all sectors,
all human resources and monitoring all impacts through «open
qualification» of innovations.
The more one integrates (at all stages of the DRL-TRL innovation
process) the impacts perceived and thus monitored through “open
qualification and evaluation tools” (Paun, 2018) (like the French
innovative Data qualifier Xvaluator) by one or more stakeholders,
the more one increases the capacities and capabilities to “make
innovation processes more agile”, thus more efficiency in using
budgets and resources. In this way, the resilience of collaborative
innovation actors is strengthened.
Thus, micro-economic tools like DRL-TRL could have macroeconomic
impacts and transform national innovation strategies. In fact, the
more companies and institutions adopt (at the micro level) the

tools (DRL-TRL, Impact Readiness Level, Risk and Shared Benefit Contracts,
Agile Demo Tech Thinking, etc.) for the agilization and hybridization of Tech
Push and Market Pull strategies (at the meso-economic level, at the level of
regions and sectors, even branches), the more a real “culture of collaborative
and agile innovation” emerges from the bottom-up.
Florin’s opinion about how we deploy the innovation mindsets in any
organizations
We all need to understand the evolution of Economic Models and
interdependent changes of the Innovation models.
Analyzing the evolution of the innovation models, from the linear process
(“concept” for Schumpeter, “R&D push” for Abernathy, Utterback, “coinnovation” for Shapiro), integrated and systemic process (“coordination
process” for Hardy, Iansiti, Chen, “innovative management” for Tucker) to
total innovation management (3 totalities for Xu) we could understand the
evolution of the practices and actors of innovation.
Thus, the Importance of the innovation ecosystem in the performance
evolution of firms is justified by the evolution of the entrepreneurship
economic model from the concept in the XIXth century of Schumpeter of
an entrepreneur as individual risk taker with the intention of a destructive
creation by replacing one product or service with another towards an
‘transformational entrepreneurship’ (MIT, 2010) concerned by the shared
value creation within its ecosystem, an environment ‘intra and extra –
preneurial’, un augmented entrepreneurship (de Rosnay, 2015).
In the coherence to the new strategies of « The Open Innovation »
(Chesbrough, 2008) but also the « All Totalities » Innovation Strategies (Xu,
2007), I would say that the innovation should become « the state of mind »
of all human resources and not just a programmed objective of a function,
or of a department R&D.
The collaboration tools and comprehension of the potential of continuous
shared value creation should be diffused in the practitioner’s activities and
open new methodologies to create either confidence but also connections
between sectors, departments, regions, ideas to enhance serendipity.
Agilising Innovation processes and organizations as shared attitude and tools
in a society of the of 21st century could mean not only more performance,
efficiency in using resources for transformation of oureconomies and their
role in everyday life but also resilience facing multi-form future potential crisis.
The importance of these new collaborative tools and strategies for innovation
“agilization” is that they generate, in a “recursive causality” (in the meaning
of Morin, 2010) of new centers of value creation, economic changes at the
interdependent micro, meso and macro levels, which makes it possible to
anticipate the trajectories and cycles of multi-sector and multi-functional
innovations. Innovation management and mindsets are thus based on
agile methods of “open and participative qualification” (Paun, 2018) that
are more and more compatible with economic, social and environmental
impacts and expectations.
The theoretical corpus of this new approach is based on research and
experiments originally carried out in France at the Office National de
Recherche et Études Aérospatiales (Paun, 2012) to build a new dynamic
of innovation and technology transfer with
SMEs through the integration of new specific
“asymmetries of collaborative processes”
(risk asymmetry, timing asymmetry, cultural
asymmetry, etc).
The second main Challenge will be the ongoing
transformation of the Economy from Value
Distribution Channels to an “Enchanted
Mangrove Forest of Value Distribution” (Paun,
2015) where everybody could supply anybody
from other domain, market sector or geographic
localization… This is currently deeply impacting
Business Models themselves and with no
awareness inside the Value Distribution Forest,
Kodak type cases will be common…
New tools like DRL-TRL enable the “agilization”
(Paun, 2019) of disruptive innovation process by
transforming the simple Distribution Chain of
technological value in a single sector into this
veritable “Tree” or “Mangrove Forest” (Paun,
2018) with fiscal, organizational and participative
management incentives for technological but
also societal innovation processes in several
sectors. Thus, we are moving from Design
Thinking to “Agile Demo-Tech thinking” (Paun,
2018) strategies that promote disruptive
innovation and have positive impacts at méso
et macro-economic levels too. Thus, we create a
society capable of understanding the innovation

models and their constantly evolution, from C&D (“connect &
develop”), “lead user method”, “Open Innovation” (Chesbrough,
2008) to the Total Innovation Model (Xu, 2007), “Hybridization
Tech Push and Market Pull – “TRL-DRL” (Paun, 2012) or “liberated
enterprise” type models, and finally to “Agile Demo Tech
Thinking” (Paun, 2018).
Source: Paun, 2011
Another recent example of collaborative innovation is the
Space Endeavour and Iot European Program that integrated
the heterogeneity of start-ups and their different specific
stages of development offering different opportunities for
collaborative innovation (Early stage Start-Up, Start-Up in the
process of their “crossing the chasm”, Mature Booming StartUps: https://sodigital.fr/le-projet-space-endeavour-et-iot/).
If we consider the evolution of humanity as another example,
we realize that it is based on collaboration and on disruptive
innovation. Disruptive innovation in materials has forged
the evolution of humankind’s eras. We have thus moved,
with technological mastery, from the era of stone to that of
bronze, iron, steel, and probably to that of silicon, graphene
and perhaps the materials of tomorrow (JEDI – Joint European
Disruptive Initiative – European Moonshot, December 2018)
adaptable and nonreformable, “living materials”.
And quoting the EIC Director Jean-David Malo, Europe is
mature and ready for this challenge: “A new battle is now
taking place in deeptech innovations, an area where Europe
has competitive advantages, with a research of excellence
at international level. The only question is: will we be able to
transform this knowledge in the form of innovations that
create new markets and therefore jobs? ”
Indeed, this will require more collaboration and public sector,
including the European Commission, to intervene with
means other than just subsidies in order to open innovation
capabilities, including increasing the serendipity acting within
players of different sectors and actively involving European
leading entrepreneurs such as Florin Talpes, founder of Softwin
and BitDefender, European leader in cybersecurity.
In fact, like some of the Competitiveness Poles that share
risks and benefices as recommended in the French innovative
Contract of Shared Risks and Benefices (PAUN, 2010) and
the PACA Open Innovation Charte (Paun, 2016 proposed to
SAFE POLE) witch for the first time have acknowledged the
importance of the territorial ecosystem in the performance
and acceleration of firms’ open innovation.
This new collaborative dynamic of Open Innovation supposes
to be able to share risks and benefices within different
ecosystem’s actors with strong cultural, temporality, risk,
interests, new identified asymmetries (PAUN, 2010).
Innovation is thus no longer the business of entrepreneurs alone
but a shared objective of regions, research labs, consumers,
investors, multinationals, start-ups, SMEs, etc.
These new tools developed in France (Paun, 2009) in the last 10
years and shared in the practice of new strategic management of
innovation in France (ONERA, Pacte PME, l’École de l’innovation
de l’ANRT, C.U.R.I.E. network, competitiveness poles and regional
innovation acceleration structures) and by international
scientists and innovation networks (Technology Transfer
Society, RRI).
Today’s entrepreneurial dynamic and performance is thus based
on this holistic approach of innovative ecosystems facilitating
the shared value creation and assure the DE multiplication of
new capabilities of all partners.
Thomas’ opinion about how we deploy the innovation mindsets
in any organizations.
Enlighten the organization. Help them to understand the
true short and long term benefits both inside and outside the
organization. Provide the proper tools and training to help
them to grow.
VIP Interviewee Report
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