In Innovating and Collaborating in the Digital Era Jara Pascual provides a new concept of co-creating innovation which is centred on the collaboration of people. This book is based on years of experience of working on collaborative projects and, in particular, of collaborations between academia and industry. The author created an online platform to digitize and automate the collaboration process as much as possible and the processes, interfaces and user interactions from the platform have been a guide for designing the structure of this book.

Jara Pascual believes that innovation cannot be done alone, you might need to collaborate with academics to understand some parts of your idea, technology or concept, or maybe you need to know who can produce your new product, so you have to be an active part of your industry and of the ecosystem you are in. This concept of co-creating innovation involves collaboration across a range of potential activities including: co-brainstorming, co-creation, co-design, co-research, co-develop, co-prototype, co-implement, co-execute, co-go-to-market, co-adopt with experts, academics, startups, investors and other types of partners.

Emotional intelligence plays an extremely important role in the success of collaborative innovation projects. Jara Pascual explains how emotions are valuable information for businesses, for innovation, for collaboration and for entrepreneurship. Emotions are information and our drivers in decision making, creativity, communication and productivity. She makes the link between the digitalization of ecosystems and the emotional intelligence needed to collaborate with peers from different industries, research areas and countries. She describes how digital transformation and the digitalization of processes is not just about technology, gadgets or tools, it's more about people and common sense.

The book features more than 20 conversations with industry leaders, entrepreneurs and academics who share their own experiences of collaboration.