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Individual Course

Open Innovation

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Course Length

6 weeks

2–4 hours a week

Featuring faculty from:

Harvard Business School

Certificate Price:

$ 950

Enroll by Jul 2, 2026

Enroll Now

Certificate Price:

$ 950

Enroll by Jul 2, 2026

Enroll Now

In Open Innovation, you will learn strategies for finding the best ideas, solutions, and people necessary to solve your organization’s most difficult problems.

What do you do when your organization can’t solve a problem on its own? Are you paying for effort instead of solutions? Is your organization stuck?

Strategic problem solving is a key element in innovation and vital to an organization’s success and growth. Open innovation is a strategy for innovation management that suggests the best ideas and people necessary to solve your organization’s difficult problems may come from outside your company entirely. Through open innovation, organizations can connect with talented people and breakthrough ideas from across the globe. Whether you’re developing a new product, responding to the changing workforce, or simply looking for new ideas, you can use open innovation to find answers and solutions in areas you didn’t expect.

Self-Guided

Harvard Online

Industries:

  • Technology
  • Pharmaceuticals
  • Manufacturing
  • Consulting
  • Prof. Dr. Rafaela K.
  • Ed W.
  • Thelma T.

Global Learning Community

  • Learn from real case studies
  • Do it on your own time
  • Get a certificate, add it to your resume
  • Be part of the Harvard Community
Data Science for Business values

Syllabus

Learning Requirements: There are no required prerequisites to enroll in this course. To earn a Certificate of Completion from Harvard Online, participants must thoughtfully complete modules 1-6 by stated deadlines.

Download Full Syllabus

Faculty

Industry Experts

Your Instructor

Karim R. Lakhani

Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School

Karim R. Lakhani is a Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School and one of the Principal Investigators of the Laboratory for Innovation Science at Harvard (LISH). He specializes in the management of technological innovation in firms and communities. His research is on distributed innovation systems and the movement of innovative activity to the edges of organizations and into communities. He has extensively studied the emergence of open source software communities and their unique innovation and product development strategies.

Industry Expert

Jin Paik

Jin Paik is the Senior Director, Lab Operations at the Digital, Data, & Design (D^3) Institute at Harvard. Hear from this expert researcher how open innovation can illuminate novel solutions for your organization.

Industry Expert

Luis Villa

Luis Villa is the Co-Founder and General Counsel of Tidelift, a startup that aims to make open source better for everyone by supporting developers. He will share how open innovation can attract talented employees to your organization.

Affiliations are listed for identification purposes only.

Industry Expert

Lynn E. Buquo

Lynn Buquo is the Former Senior Advisor at the NASA Center of Excellence for Collaborative Innovation. She will share how NASA is adopting open innovation into their organization.

Affiliations are listed for identification purposes only.

This course was worth my time and I thoroughly enjoyed communicating and learning with innovative thinkers from around the world. This was a great experience, and I am grateful my administration invested in me in this way to continue learning and growing so I could better do my job and help more humans.

Lindsey K.

Associate Dean for Research, Outreach, and Innovation in the College of Education. Director of the Science and Technology Education Center (SciTEC)

Since I have already studied Open Innovation for my PhD, I am impressed by all the new knowledge and insights that I have gained. I like the different perspectives and the great case studies, which have been very supportive in many ways.

Prof. Dr. Rafaela K.

Professor of International Management, Technology and Innovation

This course provides enough details, tips, and real-world examples to utilize open innovation as a strategy within any organization. It helped explain the different tools, platforms, tactics, and flexibilities to use depending on the business outcomes required.

Ed W.

Director of Possibilities

The content, cases, and examples helped me understand how this topic is applies in real life, and definitely added lots of value to my professional interest. I am likely to leverage this knowledge in my career.

Thelma T.

Marketing Consultant

This course has truly inspired me, and I recommend to take this course because people, who want to improve their organizations and solve their companies' most challenging problems, shouldn't be afraid of changes in business. On the contrary, open innovation should be applied in many companies to be able to adapt to business challenges and changes.

Zarina Y.

Editor-in-chief

The course didn't just give me new tools; it gave me a new lens. It transformed my personal mission from: "I find cool tech for our bank." to "I am architecting a resilient, adaptive, and partner-centric organization by systematically breaking down internal silos and strategically engaging with external ecosystems to future-proof our business and deliver unparalleled value to our customers." This shift in perspective is the most profound impact, empowering me to pursue goals with greater confidence, credibility, and strategic clarity.

Allen S.

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A variety of formats, from long-form courses that replicate an on-campus classroom experience to short-form content

Interaction with a global community of learners and leaders looking to develop their workforce, grow their business, and change the world

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Past Participant Discounts

Learners who have enrolled in at least one qualifying Harvard Online program can receive a 30% discount, automatically applied to the Program Fee upon time of payment.

Learners who have earned a verified certificate for a HarvardX course hosted on the edX platform are eligible to receive a 30% discount using a discount code. Please check your email for a code or contact us.

Nonprofit, Government, Military, and Education Discounts

Eligibility is determined by a prospective learner’s email address, ending in .org, .gov, .mil, or .edu. Interested learners can apply below for the discount and, if eligible, will receive a promo code to enter when completing payment information to enroll in a Harvard Online program.

Apply for Discount

FAQs

We offer 30% discounts to past participants of select Harvard Online courses. We also offer discounts on select courses to learners who work in nonprofits, government, military, or education, or are U.S. veterans. You can find more information about current discounts and eligibility on our course policies and discounts page.

Apply for a Discount

You are expected to complete all coursework in a thoughtful and timely way. This includes completing the modules and fully answering the questions in each module between the course start and end dates so that the cohort can move through the course at a similar pace and benefit from social learning opportunities. ⁠In addition to completing modules and assignments, you are expected to provide feedback on other learners’ reflections and contribute to discussions on the platform.

⁠You can set your own daily or weekly routine and adjust it as needed, but to receive your certificate you must complete all modules and assignments by the stated course end date. Learners who do not complete the course requirements will not receive a certificate and will not be eligible to retake the course. No letter grades are assigned for this course; your participation is evaluated on a complete or incomplete basis.

For detailed information about technology and bandwidth requirements, please see our full Harvard Online FAQs.

There is no application required for this course. You can enroll directly through Harvard Online if you are at least 18 years old, proficient in English, and committed to learning and engaging with fellow participants throughout the program.

Open Innovation presents a foundational understanding of open innovation, helping you solve some of your organization’s most difficult problems and gain access to talent beyond your organization’s walls. No specific prerequisites are required, and the course is suitable for learners from a wide range of industries who want to apply open innovation strategies in their organizations.

Upon successful completion of this program, you will receive a digital Certificate of Completion from Harvard Online. Our team reviews all participant coursework after the final deadline in your course, and, once eligibility is confirmed, your Certified Electronic Credential will be delivered to your email address.

You will have access to the materials in every prior module as you progress through the program. Access to course materials and the course platform ends 60 days after the final deadline in the program.

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