Exploring the effectiveness of inventive principles of TRIZ on developing researchers' innovative capabilities

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the efficacy of 40 inventive principles of TRIZ for developing researchers' innovative capabilities and to evaluate the extent of application of “40 inventive principles” by inventors in the Research Center of Intelligent and Signal Processing (a successful research center that is producing new products in the field of signal processing and medical engineering). Design/methodology/approach – A range of relevant literature is explored initially. A questionnaire about 40 inventive principles of TRIZ was developed based on literature review. Finally, a data analysis including descriptive statistics, correlation and regression analysis was designed by using SPSS software. Findings – The results showed that about 71 percent of the researchers have employed TRIZ above the average in their innovative products. Also these studied researchers used TRIZ principles unintentionally. Therefore, if this research center and similar institutes want to make full use of their researchers' abilities, they can facilitate innovation through offering courses on TRIZ, the principles of TRIZ and its other tools to them. Originality/value – This study is probably the first to provide an exploring of TRIZ inventive principles applications through a research center.