Futures-Diagnosis

Diagnosing the future of the Internet and innovation and their social impact

November 3, 2011 • 11:35 am 2

GOOGLE PATENTS AND THE DEATH OF INNOVATION

“Motorola has a strong patent portfolio which will help protect Android from anti-competitive threats from Microsoft, Apple and other companies,” Larry Page, CEO of Google told reporters and analysts during a conference call the day Google announced its $12.5bn acquisition of Motorola Mobility.

While Google executives played down the argument that patents were the primary motivation, the cat was out of the bag. Google, like Apple, Microsoft and Research in Motion has fuelled a technology Bull market as the pursuit of patents as a defensive end in themselves has really taken off in recent months – in July a consortium fo these players paid $4.5bn for 6,000 patents from the now liquidated Nortel Networks.

This latest patent hoarding – substantially added to by Google’s acquisition of Motorola’s 17,000 patents – has reaffirmed a point I made in one of the first posts I wrote to this blog in September 2009 titled ‘Patent Pragmatism: A Threat to R&D and Innovation’  which argued that patents had become ends in themselves, rather than as part of the realisation of innovation. Now Google, one of the few companies innovation adherents have pointed to as a beacon of innovation, has joined the bandwagon of accumulating patents as a defensive strategy.

THREATENING THE FOUNDATIONS OF INNOVATION

Although some of the recent patent hoarding activity can be put down to some high-profile court battles (Apple versus Samsung, Oracle versus Google over Android royalties, Microsoft suing Motorola) the secular trend is to treat patents as a short-term defensive hedge against countersuits. Patents are increasingly being seen as a way the legal system can be used to threaten competitive rivals and extract concessions.

The focus on the present is bad enough. But what is worse is that many of these patents include ‘foundational’ technologies – basic innovations that all subsequent similar devices would have to rely upon – which are used to secure market positions. In fact, for the past ten years the large technology vendors have been pursuing this strategy by securing the most patents.

Intellectual property is being used as a legal weapon in the battle to maintain market share and the real loser is the innovation pool. The ease with which patents are being granted has only fuelled this zero-sum game. Patents have truly become an end in themselves rather than a means to innovation.

There has been some recognition of the danger of this. On 8 September, the US Congress passed the America Invents Act which aims to make the patent application process more efficient as well as providing increased funds to the overstretched US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The act which President Obama is expected to sign into law means the US will use a ‘first to file’ system rather than ‘first to invent’ system for registering patent applications.

While this will bring the US into line with other developed countries, the overall defensive pursuits of patents could incentivise an even greater rush to accumulate foundational patent portfolios. David Hsu, a management professor at Wharton asks a key question: ‘Will people have the incentive to innovate if they aren’t given patent protection?’  Kevin Werbach, a legal studies and business ethics professor also at Wharton, building on Hsu’s concerns makes the following key points:

‘If you tweak any complex system, it becomes a design exercise in incentives. You have to start with the question of what incentives the system is designed to create. Obviously you want to promote innovation…the reality is patents operate differently in various contexts…’  (Ref)

The context is precisely the problem: short-term pragmatism where patent hoarding is being used to defend market positions means the incentive is to accumulate foundational patents as an end rather than as the basis of promoting innovation. The new law will only increase the number of patents being applied for while the legal strictures these embody will inevitably narrow the field for innovation even further. As Google’s behaviour already confirms, we are witnessing the institutionalisation of patent instrumentalism and the de-incetivisation of innovation.

Filed under: Economics of Innovation, Innovation , ,

October 6, 2011 • 9:27 pm 1

STEVE JOBS: DON’T MOURN, MOBILIZE!

The passing of Steve Jobs is indeed a sad day for those of us who remain passionate about technology, innovation and changing society. But the global mourn-fest that we have seen on the web so far, from President Obama downwards, diminishes rather than edifies the memory of Steve Jobs.

In an age where a culture of low-expectations, short-termism, risk aversion and the abrogation of responsibility is rife, the passing of Steve Jobs is certainly something to mark. Where others followed convention, bowing to known outcomes often driven by focus-groups, Jobs followed his instincts and self-belief and was willing to risk all to get where he believed he needed to go. In all of these respects, especially today, he was a man out of his times. Above all he was a leader in an age where leaderlessness is all too prevalent, from Obama to the EU and through almost every corporate boardroom in the Western hemisphere.

But to honour these qualities we should not elevate him onto a pedestal or create a cult around him, but rather redouble our efforts of emulating his enduring innovative spirit. And that means taking on the barriers to innovation that beset Western society today.

Don’t praise Ceaser, bury the myths

Of course people are shocked and sad by the news and the first reaction was to share their emotional responses on Facebook and twitter. But the tenor and content of many of the obituaries are problematic.

Steve Jobs did not cure cancer, nor did he cure the common cold which is not what you might expect to hear had you been reading many of the obituaries published today. Pure genius? In some respects perhaps, in many others, definitely not.

Let me be clear: I am a decades-old Mac evangelist. I certainly praise Apple for having made great strides in changing humanity’s conception of computing. But let’s not get carried away considering that Microsoft’s windows was the starting point from which we measure this. Apple certainly came a long way but to suggest that we’re at the end of the journey, or that because Steve Jobs is gone, we can go no further, is to trash the very spirit of Steve Jobs.

Again, I love my iPhone, my iPad and iPods.

There remain an enormous number of problems that need solving that will mean transcending existing Apple devices.

  • The iPhone, for example, remains tethered to yesterday’s voice paradigm which has not fundamentally changed in over 100 years;
  • All the devices suffer from poor battery performance, the iPhone in particular;
  • While user generated content has been made easier by Apple software, content remains tied to business models and IP structures that prefigure the digital age;
  • Touchscreen interfaces are certainly an advance, but serious usability issues remain tied as we are to yesterday’s data structures and models.

There are many more issues I can list. My purpose is to suggest that there remains a lot of work to be done.

Instead of burying ‘Ceaser’, we should be pledging and plotting how we can take up the mantle Jobs has left us.

What will you do if today was your last day?

The salience of Job’s pledge to himself, to maximise his time, should be our starting point:

  • What are you going to do to challenge today’s culture of low expectations?
  • How are you going to win the argument for technological advancement in an age of environment-correctness that is increasingly hostile to technological progress?
  • What are you going to do to challenge corporate short-termism and risk-aversion in your quest for innovation?
If anything, the death of Steve Jobs should be a rallying cry, not for looking backwards and revering the past, but for confronting the contemporary barriers to innovation in order to create Steve Jobs2.0, Steve Jobs3.0 and so on.
As Jobs himself remarked, ‘you can only join up the dots by looking back’. The point, however, is to create new opportunities for tomorrow’s dots. That’s the legacy we need to uphold and affirm in the light of Steve Job’s passing.

Filed under: Innovation, Risk and Innovation , ,

May 31, 2011 • 11:37 am 0

ENTER THE SOCIAL BUSINESS FORUM 2011 INNOVATION COMPETITION AND WIN AN IPAD2

As part of the Social Business Forum 2011 organised by Open-Knowledge srl, taking place on 8 June in Milan, there is an innovation competition on Facebook with an iPad2 as the main prize.

SOCIAL BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION

Without question, we are living in a hyper-connected, networked age with immense potential to change they way we live and do business in the 21st Century. We are also facing an unprecedented global economic crisis, which demands new thinking and solutions. But as Albert Einstein observed many years ago, ‘We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them’. The challenge today is how to use this hyper connected networked world to innovate our way to new economic growth and prosperity.

What ideas to do you have about how we can use the power of social networks within our companies as well as the ties we have outside with partners, suppliers and customers, to develop new products and services that can generate new growth and wealth?

Enter the competition by sharing your ideas for transforming how we do business in the 21st Century. The winning idea will not only win an iPad2 but will be invited to work with Open-Knowledge’s Innovation Team to develop their idea into a fully-fledged business and implementation plan.

How do you win?

  • ‘Like’ the Social Business Forum Transformation Competition page!
  • Submit your best idea on how we can use the power of social networks within our companies as well as the ties we have outside with partners, suppliers and customers, to develop new products and services that can generate new growth and wealth?
  • The 10 highest ranked ideas will be taken into consideration and evaluated by a committee and narrowed down to a final winner.
  • The winner will be announced at the final plenary of the Social Business Forum 2011 on 8 June in Milan and on Facebook.
  • The participant with the winning idea will receive an iPad2 and will be invited to work with Open-Knowledge’s Innovation Team to develop their idea into a fully-fledged business and implementation plan.

HELPFUL HINTS:

Interact thoughtfully on the platform. Your reputation score will be important in determining the winning idea. The Spigit platform factors in the meaningful contributions you make throughout the idea site. Everything you do will be reflected in your reputation and idea rank.

The higher the quality ideas, comments and votes you add will improve your reputation score.

ENTER THE COMPETITION

Click here.

Filed under: Innovation , , ,

May 18, 2011 • 11:00 am 0

SOCIAL BUSINESS FORUM 2011

Next month on June 8, the Social Business Forum 2011 organised by Open-Knowledge srl, will take place in Milan. This is Open-Knowledge’s fourth European-wide Forum examining the impact of social media on the enterprise. This year’s event looks set to be one of the most interesting and important event of its kind globally.

The business impact of ‘social’

At first glance the term ‘Social Business’ appears trendily tautological. After all, what business is not social in the sense of being part of the social relations of modern society? The fact that the discussion about social media remains so pathetically superficial and impressionistic should not, however, blind us to the fact that there is something new about social media. And that newness is the potential it has for transforming business practices and processes.

The impact and potential of social media on the enterprise (what is described in more techie-speak as the impact of Web2.0 technologies) lies in the increased ability these afford to easily reveal, capture, analyse and visualise the social networks underpinning practices  and processes inside and outside the enterprise.

In one sense there is nothing new in this. Since the Depression of the 1930s sociologists and economists have stressed the importance of social networks in business motivated as they were by the need to explain why some companies succeeded while others failed. But what is new in this debate is the emergence of social behaviours and technologies (a closely interrelated phenomenon) that have brought social networks to the fore in everyday life. The systematic application of this new environment remains poorly explored in the business world. And this is what the Social Business Forum 2011 (SBF2011) aims to address.

Socialising inside out

The three tracks of the SBF2011 all focus on the impact and potential of social networks for business transformation.

  • The first track aims to examine how uncovering the informal networks underpinning how enterprises actually function day-to-day (as opposed to how the org chart would have us believe they function) reveals where and how collaboration and efficiencies could be improved or fostered. Revealing social networks can be the key to improving productivity, fostering innovation or culture change programmes as well as a device for more targeted reward and incentive schemes.
  • The second stream looks at this from the perspective of the networks outside the enterprise – the connections with suppliers, partners, and most critically, customers. This stress upon external engagement explores how linking internal and external networks has the potential to fundamentally transform internal process; what is now being referred to in some literature as the socialisation of business processes.
  • The third stream focuses on innovation and the evolving open innovation paradigm. With the insight that ideas are in reality a network of other ideas, this track looks at the networks underpinning innovation within and without the enterprise. The radical insight to be explored is that like many other processes now being increasingly influenced by social networks, the innovation process itself needs rethinking in these terms. What for example, is the relationship between the explorers inside the enterprise (those who bring new ideas into, or who might even be outside, the organisation) with those who engage with these ideas (those who have connections or resources to influence innovation decision-making) and with finally, the exploiters – those who implement innovation. Like the other processes mentioned above, a networked approach to innovation represents the socialisation of innovation which has enormous potential for the future.

In each track numerous case studies will be presented to demonstrate that this is not wishful thinking or academic. Real life examples will be presented and explored that demonstrate both the potential of these insights but also that we are only at the very start of realising this potential.

If you are thinking about these issues or are engaging with these changes, then SBF2011 is where you need to be!

Register now! Join the debate. Meet hundreds of people struggling with the same problems and potential. Participate in what promises to be the premier social business event of 2011 in Europe.

You’ll also be able to eat and drink some great Italian food and wine. Always good for social networking!

Filed under: Innovation , , , ,

March 15, 2011 • 11:14 am 0

REDISCOVERING AMBITION IN INNOVATION

In recent weeks there have been a number of articles mainly in the US media which chart the decline of Silicon Valley and the broader decline in US innovation. See for example, Tyler Cowan’s very useful piece in the New York Times published on Friday 29 January titled ‘Innovation Is Doing Little for Incomes‘ or Tony D’Altorio’s ‘Has Silicon Valley Lost Its Edge?‘

The themes of these articles will be familiar to any regular readers of this Blog. Tyler Cowan really backs the Big Potatoes Manifesto’s point that we are not living in an era of unprecedented innovation but a relative decline. He argues that this is best seen and understood in the slowdown in economic growth and its impact on incomes:

  • From 1947 to 1973 — a period of just 26 years — inflation-adjusted median income in the United States more than doubled. But in the 31 years from 1973 to 2004, it rose only 22 percent;
  • Over the last decade, it actually declined.

Cowan argues further that most well-off countries have experienced income growth slowdowns since the early 1970s which suggests these societies have reached a ‘technological plateau’:

The numbers suggest that for almost 40 years, we’ve had near-universal dissemination of the major innovations stemming from the Industrial Revolution, many of which combined efficient machines with potent fossil fuels. Today, no huge improvement for the automobile or airplane is in sight, and the major struggle is to limit their pollution, not to vastly improve their capabilities.

Instead of incomes broadly being raised across the board, what little innovation there has been in the past 50 years or so, have benefitted relatively few people. The technological innovations at the turn of the Century, which raised living standards throughout the Century, belong to a bygone age: the broad-based advances of earlier decades, when the modern world was put into place are now elusive. As Cowan he puts it:

  • If pre-1973 growth rates had continued, for example, median family income in the United States would now be more than $90,000, as opposed to its current range of around $50,000.

Short-termism and limits

Tony D’Altorio’s ‘Has Silicon Valley Lost Its Edge?‘ picks up on this theme too. He argues, as have others that Facebook’s $50 billion valuation in private financing in January, while suggesting that it ‘looked like business as usual for the Silicon Valley’ actually masked a decline in US technological competitiveness and ‘a deeper malaise that threatens America’s system of innovation’. He quotes John Seely Brown, who used to head up the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center – one of the Valley’s most renowned corporate research and development laboratories – who argues that U.S. technology investors no longer care about the serious work needed to keep a lead in many advanced industries. He says, “we’ve lost the will for patient investment,” thanks to quick profits from high-flying internet and social networking firms.

In other words, as we have argued in Big Potatoes, short-term speculation has increasingly replaced longer term investment in basic research where outcomes cannot be specified in advance but which have led in the past to the creation of new industries.

The point, however, is not simply a problem of short-termism. Looking to invest in quick-wins like Facebook (which are unlikely to be remembered for their contribution to human progress) is a symptom of a much deeper malaise: the loss of confidence in technology itself and our ability to do the hard work of finding new solutions to the problems we confront. Short-termism expresses a loss of faith in the future and in the human capacity to change the world around us. As  Tyler Cowan put it above

Today, no huge improvement for the automobile or airplane is in sight, and the major struggle is to limit their pollution, not to vastly improve their capabilities

The problem is the limits we now place upon the scope for innovation. The problem is not where the money might or might not be going – to China or  Silicon Valley – but the assumptions that underpin its movement. While incremental innovation can certainly happen within a culture of limits, limiting the ambition behind the innovation impulse reduces the scope for breakthroughs. Indeed, it factors them out of the equation at the outset. It boxes innovation into smaller and smaller fields of endeavour which ultimately will reduce incomes for the mass of humanity even further.

It’s not capital that’s in short supply but ambition.

Filed under: Innovation , , , ,

December 8, 2010 • 1:01 pm 2

CHINA TO LEAD WORLD INNOVATION BY 2020…APPARENTLY

According to Reuters News Service, published on the ABC News channel China is now set to become the leader of world innovation by 2020…according to a public opinion poll of 6,000 people in six countries done by drug maker AstraZeneca.

Public perceptions of course are always impressionistic. But the sentiments expressed in the survey are very revealing.

It is still the case today, for example, that the USA remains the world’s most innovative nation followed by Japan. China, which is now third, has reached this place very rapidly and looks set to go further. While there are indications of a significant shift China has some way to go to overtake the USA. For example, the ABC article mentions the study last month from Thomson Reuters which revealed that China was now the second-largest producer of scientific papers, after the United States. But the same study showed that R&D spending by Asian nations as a group in 2008 was $387 billion, compared with $384 billion in the United States and $280 billion in Europe. But this does not equate to being more innovative.

However, the significance of this survey lies in the subjective insight it reveals about perceptions in the West and the East.

R&D spending does not equal innovation – but belief ensures it

As we have discussed in previous posts, the amount spent on R&D is never, in itself, a guarantee of innovation. It is the culture that informs that spending, the context within which that innovation emerges that remains critical. The survey which was taken across Britain, the United States, Sweden, Japan, India and China, found

‘…a strong sense of optimism amongst people living in China and India, in contrast to relative pessimism in the developed Western economies’.

People in the East believe China will become the world’s leading innovator by 2020. But so too do people in the West. The same perception is informed by starkly different moods: optimism and pessimism.

Subjectivity does greatly influence the culture of innovation. Pessimism, will influence an innovation culture that places emphasis upon incremental changes. It will foster a conservative and cautious approach which can only lower expectations about the goals and objectives of innovation and its outcomes. Optimism, on the other hand, underpins an innovation culture that is more at ease with uncertainty and thus encourages a willingness to experiment and to take risks. This raises expectations about what innovation can achieve. It was not pessimism that drove America to put a man on the moon.

As a co-author of Big Potatoes, you can guess where I’d put my money.

Filed under: R&D and Innovation , ,

November 9, 2010 • 1:37 pm 0

CORPORATE R&D SPENDING IN DECLINE IN 2009

According to Booz & Company Global Innovation 1000 Study, corporate R&D spending declined during the 2009 downturn. The report also shows how vacuous the concept of innovation has become and its separation from R&D.

The report, the sixth annual study of corporate innovation, notes that total research and development (R&D) spending among the world’s top spenders on innovation dropped in 2009 for the first time in 13 years: the 1,000 companies that spent the most on research and development decreased their total R&D spending by 3.5 per cent to $503 billion in 2009. This followed a relatively strong 2008 during in which R&D spending continued to grow despite the recession.

Probably the most important finding is how the recession has hit corporate earnings:

  • Revenues for the Innovation 1000 plunged 11% from $15.1 trillion in 2008 to $13.4 trillion in 2009 — nearly three times the rate of decline in R&D spending:
  • R&D intensity, or R&D spending as a percentage of revenue, actually increased — from 3.46% in 2008 to 3.75% in 2009.

Surprisingly, in the face of these revenue reductions, the 3.5% reduction in R&D spending by the 1,000 top R&D spenders was less severe than the cuts they made into both sales, general and administrative expenses (a 5.4% reduction), and capital expenditures (a 17.5% drop).

The big question this nevertheless reveals is what these corporations will do with R&D spending once corporate earnings rebound in 2010?

Interesting insights

More than half of all companies Booz & Company tracked cut their R&D spending in 2009 and nearly all the cuts came in just three industries:

  • Auto, computing and electronics, and industrials.
  • The other seven industries examined — health, software and Internet, telecom, chemicals and energy, aerospace and defense, consumer and industrials — all increased spending to some degree.
  • The auto industry alone accounted for fully two-thirds of the $18 billion contraction in R&D spending;
  • The computing and electronics industry reported similar, but less drastic, R&D spending reductions with no change in the industry’s R&D intensity:
  • Despite a decline in R&D spending, computing and electronics retained its top spot as the industry that spent the most on innovation, while auto remained at number three. Healthcare took the number two spot, increasing R&D by 1.5%, much slower than the industry’s revenue growth rate of 6.0%.
  • Japan saw the largest percentage drop in spending by region in which a company was headquartered – 10.8%,  North American spending declined by 2.8%, while Europe’s declined by just 0.2%.

In contrast, companies headquartered in China and India boosted R&D spending by 41.8%, although from a small base, as they account for only 1% of total Global Innovation 1000 corporate R&D spending.

The vacuous concept of ‘Innovation’

To underline how vacuous the concept of innovation  has become, the report reveals some depressingly stereotypical insights. The survey asked innovation leaders to name three companies they consider to be most innovative in the world.

Apple far and away led the Top 10, named by 79 percent of those surveyed, followed by Google with 49 percent. 3M followed next with 20 percent. Only three of the companies on the “ten most innovative” list also appear on this year’s top spenders list: Toyota, Microsoft and Samsung.

While this reiterates the lack of correlation between the magnitude of R&D spending and innovation results, it highlights the recurrent problem we have been highlighting with innovation today in the Big Potatoes Manifesto: namely, that Apple, a company that essentially puts together other people’s innovations while paying attention to user interfaces, is now held up as the model of  ’innovation’. This raises serious questions about what these ‘innovation leaders’ think R&D is really all about.

What the report fails to question is the relationship between risk taking and the willingness to invest in areas of research where there are no foregone conclusions about commercialisability, but where the source for future innovation might emerge. This would give a more accurate picture of the state of contemporary innovation. Sadly, this report is another missed opportunity to make this the focus of the public debate about the future of innovation.

Filed under: Innovation, R&D and Innovation , ,

October 29, 2010 • 3:04 pm 0

BATTLE OF IDEAS 2010

This weekend sees the return of the excellent ‘Battle Of Ideas‘ annual Festival organised by the Institute of Ideas. If you haven’t got a ticket yet, its possible to purchase one on the day. It will certainly be worthwhile.

TRANSPARENCY AND PRIVACY

I will be speaking tomorrow in  a debate titled  ’Behind closed doors: privacy vs transparency?. As a taster of what I intend to say, here’s a piece I wrote for the Independent Blog, titled, ‘A transparent loss of trust’ which was published yesterday. My key point is that ‘Transparency institutionalises a climate of dishonesty because its starting point is mistrust’.

The transparency debate is becoming a critical one and has implications for the future of R&D and innovation. One only has to examine the call for greater data transparency to see how far the basic confusion between information and knowledge has gone. This has enormous implications for the future development of products and services built upon data and metadata. Understanding what lies behind the increased demand and celebration of transparency and thus, its implications, has never been more important.

Filed under: Trust , , ,

October 13, 2010 • 6:36 pm 0

IF SCIENCE IS SO VITAL, WHY ARE SCIENTISTS SO AMBIVALENT ABOUT THEIR KNOWLEDGE?

The Science is Vital demonstration and rally last  Saturday, was the first time I have been at  protest event surrounded by young people in white coats enthusiastically cheering about how vital science is to the future. Of course there were a lot of crusty, bespectacled, bearded  ’science’ types, but the presence of so many younger people and their passion was truly exciting.

The rally was very respectable but passionate. Of all the speakers, Colin Blakemore was the most poignant. His message was very simple but vital: society needs to invest in scientific research if it is to shape the unknown future. Unlike many of the other speakers, his defence of spending on science was not solely predicated on the economic benefits it might create for Britain in the future. He argued for the intrinsic value of knowledge and the human potential of solving problems we don’t even know exist yet.

DEFENSIVENESS

This was refreshing and speaks to one of the key assumptions we have incorporated into Big Potatoes: The London manifesto for Innovation. While numerous speakers flattered the British scientific community (for punching above its weight), their arguments, which centred more on the economic value of science, began to worry me. The message promoted is that science is vital not because of its intrinsic value but because of its potential economic consequences.

While economic benefits are important, there is a problem with defending science in this way. What if research does not yield immediate economic returns? What if it takes decades before ‘useless’ research becomes relevant? But most importantly, if this is the criteria by which we judge the legitimacy of science we destroy the scientific method itself: scientific relevance cannot be stipulated at the outset.

The most worrying thing about the current debate is the defensive character of the scientific community. There is a palpable lack of confidence in justifying science in terms of its capacity to develop new knowledge as a noble goal in itself  and as part of human-centred problem solving and the ability to control nature to reduce uncertainty. By constantly slipping back into justifying the pursuit of knowledge in narrow, immediate economic terms, the authority of knowledge is undermined.

A few examples of the problem

There are numerous examples of this problem. Take Europe’s Large Hadron Collider. The project justifies its existence (according to the website) by stressing that one of its byproducts may be new science ‘that can be applied almost immediately’. Does this mean that all that investment would have been wasted if the project does not deliver immediate benefits?

Take another example, the most significant development in UK biomedical science for a generation, the new UK Centre for Medical Research and Innovation. The aim of this project is :

‘to understand the basic biology underlying human health, finding ways to prevent and treat the most significant diseases affecting people today.’

While these goals can only be admired, a closer examination of the project reveals an unease about this mission. In their vision and strategy we find the following two points:

  • It will nurture a culture in which clinical and commercial translation is valued as highly as discovery research.
  • It will engage with the public to build strong relationships with local communities.

‘Commercial translation’ – making money – is ‘valued as highly as discovery research’? Can this really be true? Again, what if the research finds no applicability for the next 40 years? Does that mean UKCMRI has failed? And why build strong relationships with local communities? Is there some strong medical or research reason why UKCMRI wants to build strong relationships with the people of Camden? In fact so concerned is UKCMRI with justifying its role they promise to provide ‘community facilities’ as part of their community building exercise. Is UKCMRI going to be the UK’s premier medical research institute or a local community centre where the people of Camden can drop in for a hot cuppa?

The same unease about justifying the goals of a research project can be seen in another grand initiative undertaken by one of the UK’s top research Universities, University College London Research (UCL RESEARCH). In their research GRAND CHALLENGES which are indeed grand (Global Health, Sustainable Cities, Intercultural Interaction and Human Wellbeing) they justify their ‘Expertise’ as follows:

We are world leaders across the breadth of academic disciplines – from neuroscience to urban planning, particle physics to health informatics and environmental law – and we have an ongoing commitment to innovation and relevance.

‘…an ongoing commitment to…relevance’? Albert Einstein would be turning in his grave at the thought of making relevance a commitment to solving grand scientific challenges. As he is famously purported to have said: ‘If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn’t be called research’. But it seems that today the scientific community is uncomfortable with justifying its existence by insisting that research leads to the production of new knowledge which is different from the transfer or application of existing knowledge.

This reveals that the scientific community is uneasy with unpredictability (which ought to be its war cry). It is the fundamental unpredictability of research that nourishes experimentation, throws up new problems and opens fresh avenues of enquiry. As a result new knowledge creates not simply incremental or relevant or commercial advance but, in many cases, whole new industries.

When the scientific community feel it necessary to justify their existence on the pragmatic grounds of relevance or commercialism they shoot themselves in the foot and undermine science itself. The authority of science and scientific knowledge is undermined which can only result in an even greater demand for certainty in outcomes – an even faster move away from the pursuit of knowledge.

Science is vital, but this debate is even more so.

Filed under: Authority, Innovation , ,

October 6, 2010 • 4:43 pm 0

Future City: Is London missing out on the potential of new technologies?

I will be participating in the Story of London Festival tomorrow evening (Thursday 8 October) at the British Library in a debate about London and the future of innovation.

This is very timely. Just today the EU has declared an ‘Innovation emergency’ recognising that Europe is now falling behind globally in the investment in and development of new research and its commercialisation. EU officials have stated their goal is having 3 per cent of EU gross domestic product invested in research and development by 2020 – a target that matches US president Barack Obama’s plans, although Europe has struggled to hit 2 per cent of GDP over the past decade. Even this seems extremely unambitious.

This highlights that there is now a growing understanding of the innovation crisis facing European, indeed Western States. It is this reality and its underlying causes that I intend to raise in tomorrow night’s debate which is based on the theme ‘London, Innovation and the Future’, focusing on London as a site of innovation and the value of innovation to the future of the city.

Distractions, toys vs problem solving

The publicity material for the debate states that ‘historically London has been the site of great innovations, and digital technologies are raising further our ability to innovate’. It asks some serious questions:

  • ‘Are we getting distracted by shiny new technologies and ignoring real innovation?
  • ‘Does London have the ambition and vision to harness such developments?’

As one of the co-authors of Big Potatoes: the London Manifesto for Innovation, my answers should come as no surprise: definitely ‘yes’ to the first, and definitely ‘NO’ to the second…But for my reasons, you will have to come to the debate.

This should be an interesting evening given the topic and the speakers who are participating.

Fellow speakers:
Dr Hermann Hauser, co-founder, Amadeus Capital Partners
Iain Gray, chief executive, Technology Strategy Board
Adam Hart-Davis, writer and broadcaster
Chair: David Rowan, editor, Wired UK

I look forward to seeing some of you at the British Library at 6.30pm.

Filed under: Innovation , , ,

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