Collabant.com’s Collaborative Design and Development Service helps academic, corporate, and nonprofit leaders form co-creation teams to design and pilot new services, tools, and initiatives that align with user needs, organizational purpose, and systems-level thinking. Through structured facilitation, strategic mapping, and iterative design loops, clients move from abstract intent to implementable innovation—with stakeholder ownership built in.
“Building Bridges Between Academia and Industry: How One Professor Sparked Service Innovation Through Collabant.com”
Dr. Naomi Fujita, Professor of Science Communication, Graduate School of Frontier Sciences
Dr. Fujita saw a recurring issue: companies offering tools or platforms for researchers often misunderstood the real-world workflows, constraints, and motivations of the academic community. She envisioned a new kind of interface—where researchers themselves co-designed solutions with companies, not just tested or adopted them.
But to bring this vision to life, she needed:
A structured process for identifying real researcher needs
A way to build agile, multidisciplinary teams quickly
A trust-based framework for collaboration between academia and industry
Dr. Fujita partnered with Collabant.com to use its Collaborative Design and Development Service. Together, they launched a three-phase engagement:
Collabant provided:
Onboarding and facilitation for a mixed team of 12 (4 company reps, 6 researchers, 2 doctoral students as translators)
A "Collaboration Compact" clarifying shared goals, ground rules, and value exchange
A kickoff Strategy Lab using systems mapping and journey visualization tools
Activities:
Weekly 90-minute design sprints focused on friction points in research workflows (e.g., grant applications, data sharing, peer feedback)
Use of Notion, Miro, and GPT-supported brainstorming tools
Real-time feedback loops via mock interviews with external researchers
Outputs:
Two new prototype service ideas:
A “Peer Protocol Builder” for co-author alignment
A “Researcher Impact Map” tool for visualizing non-academic value of work
Company teams received:
Facilitation training using the Collabant Playbook
Custom storytelling templates to explain researcher needs to their boards
Access to the “Collaboration Health Dashboard” for team pulse tracking
Outcomes:
One tool is now being beta-tested with three labs across two universities
The company created an internal “Research Co-Creation Task Force”
Two doctoral students secured internships and are now innovation liaisons
Metric Outcome
Time to prototype
6 weeks
Researcher satisfaction
94% positive feedback
Repeat collaboration interest
3 new inquiries from other departments
Company decision-maker engagement
2 VP-level supporters now exploring expansion funding
“With Collabant, we didn’t just consult—we co-invented. Our academic team felt heard, and the company walked away with real insight, not just deliverables. This is how innovation should feel.”
— Dr. Naomi Fujita, Professor, University of Tokyo
Don't build for users—build with them.
Use collaboration design not as an add-on, but as a strategic innovation engine.
With Collabant.com, engagement becomes ownership, and insight becomes invention.