Interinstitutional Collaborations in Open Innovation and Sustainability: An Integrative Literature Review

In the face of worsening environmental, social, and economic challenges faced globally, the demand for innovative solutions that promote a more sustainable development model is growing. In this scenario, open innovation has emerged as a compelling model for fostering collaborations among universities, companies, and governments, thereby generating shared value. Recent literature highlights the importance of collaborative and interinstitutional approaches to overcome the limitations of traditional innovation models. However, barriers related to asymmetry of interests, regulatory gaps, and complexity in knowledge management among heterogeneous institutions persist. In view of this, this study seeks to analyze interinstitutional collaborations in open innovation and their relationship with sustainability, through an integrative literature review. The methodology adopted involved the selection and analysis of eight articles indexed in the Web of Science database, based on the keywords “Open Innovation”, “Sustainability” and “Collaborative Networks”. The results indicate that open innovation can strengthen sustainable practices by promoting knowledge flows between different actors, but its effectiveness depends on overcoming regulatory, technological and organizational obstacles. It is concluded that, although inter-institutional collaborations are promising in promoting sustainability, advances in public policies, collaborative governance and management of technological diversity are still needed to expand their impact.