ABSTRACT
Innovation has never been as important as it is now to solve the problems caused by COVID-19 and the socioeconomic crisis. In this context, and within the framework of an economy based on knowledge and change, economic and social agents need open innovation to generate competitiveness and development. For their part, universities need to increase technological production as a source of innovation. In the literature there are models of innovation, but they do not present a method to move from basic to technological research. Aim of this work was to fill, in part, this gap. Under the qualitative approach, the Open Innovation model, the Technological Maturity Levels method and the Pedagogical Accompaniment model were selected to develop a post-COVID-19 route to intensify innovation. The article contributes to knowledge with a methodology that allows expanding the performance of researchers and raising the technological level of universities towards competitiveness. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.