Mathew Egessa, Cosmas Munga and Ngetich Cheruiyot

Abstract

Despite documented benefits of having an innovation hub within a university and the calls by the stakeholders in the Technical University of Mombasa (TUM) Strategic Plan 2018-2022, there has been no formal platform within the university that supports multidisciplinary TUM researchers to converge among themselves or with external stakeholders, to continuously brainstorm and co-create innovative solutions. As a response to these calls, the study sought to develop a platform for multidisciplinary and participatory action research, anchored on the principles of Human Centred Design and Quadra Helix Approach, to co-create solutions to real societal challenges. The study employed action research, an approach that is considered to be learning by doing. It involves iteratively: identifying a problem; doing something to resolve it “an intervention”; then assessing how successful the efforts are. Being part of an ongoing study, this article will report the journey of setting up and running the Blue Economy Innovation Hub. It will detail the successes, challenges and learnings since its inception. Recommendations derived from the findings will lastly be given.