Managing the co-creation process: when the cake does not rise

Co-creation is recognised in the literature as fostering successful collaboration between academia and industry. Although models do exist, they only contain general principals and provide no details about the process from ideation to value creation. Moreover, they are established based on a consideration that industry submits a problem and the university provides solutions. However, with increasing pressure on researchers for their research to lead to tangible applications, universities must now also turn to firms to pinpoint their needs and practices. The purpose of this paper is to understand how a researcher can implement and manage a co-creation project in collaboration with firms to foster innovation. A university research team in food science and technology, in response to the issue of allergen management in the food service industry, more specifically the use of eggs in pastries, has led a co-creation project with six professional pastry chefs to improve cake formulations, in which eggs were replaced with legume puree. Based on the results and the literature, a model to manage the co-creation process between academia and industry that incorporates a collaboration platform is proposed. This paper also identifies the concrete practices that foster creativity and interaction among participants and that lead to innovation.