Anyone worked with innovation department of F2000 companies before? Trying to find the department in big corps that deal with startups/scout new technology but don't know which keywords to start with, like how these departments are usually named?

Innovation, digital transformation, open innovation - those are some keywords, in our experience though departments like this are a time suck and rarely lead to anything good

The internal incentives need to align. Innovation team's metrics are more input than output metrics, whereas it is better to approach the actual BU that you are helping to hit their metrics for, even inefficiently. You need to find the champion who lives the pain that you solve.