The Center aims at providing a platform for knowledge-sharing, i.e. a platform where research actors meet to share and develop knowledge and new ideas to enable the creation of new projects through university-industry collaboration. By providing a coherent environment where researchers both can work together, and engage in critical discussion and idea generation, and meet practitioners interested in research collaborations, the research conducted in the projects is enhanced by the combination of perspectives.

There are many benefits related to learning beyond the scope of individual projects. There is a need for initiative to enable learning, i.e. to utilize the research in the best possible way, as well as to be an “enabler” for cooperation between industry and academia. CBI as a center thus comprises both a project portfolio (that is financed on its own merits and applications) and an organization and environment allowing knowledge diffusion that otherwise would not have occurred.

CBI, based on its main mission, provides a clearer and more visible base for broader collaboration with industry than is enabled by individual projects.

A specific learning initiative embedded within the logic underlying the platform provided by CBI is to acquire and absorb already existing knowledge. By exploiting this knowledge in products and services, we hope to increase exposure and access to already existing knowledge useful for innovation. We accomplish this through a tool for measuring innovation capability and through business-innovation projects (BIP) conducted with companies as packaged services with clear deliverables. We provide executive education services for companies in the form of workshops or seminars. We also offer a series of seminars and workshops on topics of interest to both practitioners and researchers.