"There's no such thing as a science of innovation"

Shlomo Maital, noted economist and innovation guru, gave a talk to the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto the other day, in which he reminded the audience that "There's no such thing as a science of innovation." Science is based on the premise of contingent knowledge, whereby current understandings of the world are testable and evolve as we observe, review, and learn about phenomena. Maital's premise is that innovation is about breaking rules: there is no science inherent to innovation. Innovation is likened to the state of creativity a child has before going to school. Those who survive school with creativity intact are more likely to succeed in entrepreneurial activity, Maital posits. His talk - "Stumbling on the Star Trek Principle: Innovation Secrets of da Vinci, Edison, Einstein and Picasso" - outlined his view that, in order to succeed at disruptive innovation, we must "boldly go where no one has gone before". This is particularly important now, in the midst of a global depression, as history teaches us that depressions are the fulcrum for great innovation. Loathe to deploy business school jargon, Maital invoked the "paradigm shift," whereby the rules by which we do business will be fundamentally rewritten. Every single industry, he says, will rewrite its rules. Those who do the writing will emerge as the new leaders.

Many pundits have weighed in on similar issues, and there is evidence to support Maital's claims that innovation emerges from depressions. His trenchant question--what will the new rules of the game be?--can be resolved only through a creativity that leads to thinking differently. We must also be amenable to failure. "A reason to fail is a powerful lever for innovation," as it is the freedom to learn from failure that is the hallmark of innovators. "Innovation is breaking the rules" he says, and our ability to imagine the future (via a "future photograph"), combined with an ability to learn from mistakes, lets us enable a future state.

Maital ended with a call to action, to use the principles of design to design our lives. This is the basic principle of the Innovation Support Services that we use in our applied research services. That is, we focus on the intentional application of design and expertise within our faculty and student community to support innovative activity within the College and within industry partnerships. Design for us is the fulcrum for solving industry problems. A triad of programs at George Brown College--the Institute without Boundaries, the Institute of Entrepreneurship and Community Innovation, and the Research Commercialization and Innovation programs--all have design as a component of their educational programming. The GBC Research Labs has expertise in human centred and participatory design, and this informs our approach to collaborative problem solving with our partners.

While there may be no science of innovation, there is definitely a need for science in innovation. The intentional application of applied research and innovation services to industry needs and contexts means we focus less on discovery, and more on the design and diffusion of innovation - how to test the practicality of new products or services (adoption and adaptation). This application requires disciplined approaches to problem solving, to induce innovation and encourage its incipient growth.

The Innovation Equation: The Role of Research in Canada

[NB - I've moved this post to its own for ease of reference. It was originally part of this post. An Archive version is here.]

Canada's Science, Technology and Innovation Council (STIC) recently released its report on the state of innovation in Canada. State of the Nation 2008 offers benchmarking data on how we fare at innovation, science and technology. Other assessments, such as our "D for Innovation" from the Conference Board of Canada, suggest we are mediocre at best. The STIC report was released amid much talk about the funding of basic research, the setting of national research priorities, and the role of applied research. Pundits have weighed in on both sides of the innovation equation: funding basic, curiosity-driven research versus applied research, innovation and commercialization. While the former is a necessary part of any healthy academic ecosystem, we ignore the latter at our national peril.

Some have decried the lack of funding for basic research, particularly as compared to US President Obama’s recent announcement of a 3% GDP allocation to basic science research. This is a laudable goal, but ignored in our debate is the fact that Canada is second only to Sweden among OECD countries in per capita investment in higher education expenditures on research and development. We rank lower—12th in the world—when it comes to business expenditure in research and development. Fixing this imbalance and encouraging more private R&D investment is seen by many as the path to increased productivity. This context, overlooked by those seeking more funding for basic research only, is why it is important for Canada to set national research priorities and direct funding accordingly. Investing in Canada`s applied research will enhance our overall social and economic productivity.

The STIC report calls for greater collaboration between colleges, universities and businesses. Colleges offer industry-facing applied research capabilities that fill gaps in Canada`s R&D pipelines. Our focus on applied research, innovation and commercialization supports industry problem-solving in ways that are complementary to established, discovery-based research institutions. This is a strength, and a necessary facet of the R&D continuum. Supporting College applied research capacity is part of the federal Science and Technology Strategy (through the College and Community Innovation Program) and the Ontario Innovation Agenda.

The Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation’s Colleges Ontario Network for Industry Innovation funds industry problem-solving using College resources, students and faculty. By directly involving our students in industry-focused applied research we promote innovation literacy, producing graduates who have research, problem solving, leadership and entrepreneurship skills, and the ability to recognize innovation in the product development lifecycle. This is in addition to the job-ready skills our graduates already possess. College graduates are vital to the national economy. Canada ranks first in the OECD attainment of tertiary education only when College education is factored in.

The college applied research system is well positioned to play a lead role in strengthening national and regional capacity to innovate, working with research centres and industry partners to enhance competitiveness in the sectors we serve. Firms in Canada are not yet making effective use of the postsecondary research facilities we currently have, but this is changing. College applied research centres offer complementary capacity for R&D that enables industry to make more effective use of publicly funded research facilities. We offer services to industry that are not currently widely available in Canada – the applied research, commercialization-focused “last mile” services that industry needs in order to test market practicality assumptions. Broadening the potential outputs for R&D in a given area by supporting applied research will foster increased productivity, enabling Canada to realign R&D expenditure imbalances, and correct our long-standing poor record on innovation.

Should all research be directed toward a commercial outcome? No. Nor should commercialization become our only yardstick for measuring return on investment of tax dollars. Instead, call this a return on innovation. Funding for both basic and applied research that leads to innovation and commercialization is key to improving community economic and social development. We must certainly maintain and improve our commitment to funding basic research, but we must also see the very real benefits that will come from funding applied research and the commercialization of innovations. Canada has historically been good at invention, but less effective at exploiting innovations for social gain. This has to change. The STIC report is yet another wake-up call.

http://hdl.handle.net/10299/167

Creativity and the Canadian Innovation Agenda

Gary Goodyear, Minister of State for Science and Technology, appeared at the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences yesterday to reaffirm the importance of creativity to Canadian innovation. Creativity is a staple of innovation literacy, and there is a valuable contribution from the humanities and social sciences to the innovation agenda, as mentioned in my post a few days ago. Setting national research priorities and marshaling our collective resources toward these is important, as is acknowledging interprofessional and disparate views on the social and economic productivity challenges in Canada.

New Waterfront Campus receives federal funding

GBC's new Waterfront campus, currently in the design stage, has received $30M in federal funding, part of the recent federal infrastructure spending. These funds are in addition to the funds already committed by the Province of Ontario. The new campus will be a significant anchor for interprofessional health sciences education in the GTA health cluster. The campus will also feature applied research capacity--the George Brown College Health Sciences Inter-Professional Online Research and Technology Assessment Laboratory (I-PORTAL). I-PORTAL will establish a significant new capability for applied research and technology design, prototyping, development and commercialization in the context of interprofessional health care.

"...the unfinished business of the innovation agenda"

An article today about the Congress for Social Scientists outlines argues for more funding for social sciences research. Chad Gaffield, president of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, calls this "...the unfinished business of the innovation agenda." Certainly we need to acknowledge the need to fund and foster creativity within our innovation agenda.

Recently I wrote an update to my post on Canada's Science, Technology and Innovation Council report on the state of innovation in Canada. It is relevant to the discussion on research funding:

The Innovation Equation: The Role of Research in Canada

Canada's Science, Technology and Innovation Council (STIC) recently released its report on the state of innovation in Canada. State of the Nation 2008 offers benchmarking data on how we fare at innovation, science and technology. Other assessments, such as our "D for Innovation" from the Conference Board of Canada, suggest we are mediocre at best. The STIC report was released amid much talk about the funding of basic research, the setting of national research priorities, and the role of applied research. Pundits have weighed in on both sides of the innovation equation: funding basic, curiosity-driven research versus applied research, innovation and commercialization. While the former is a necessary part of any healthy academic ecosystem, we ignore the latter at our national peril.

Some have decried the lack of funding for basic research, particularly as compared to US President Obama’s recent announcement of a 3% GDP allocation to basic science research. This is a laudable goal, but ignored in our debate is the fact that Canada is second only to Sweden among OECD countries in per capita investment in higher education expenditures on research and development. We rank lower—12^th in the world—when it comes to business expenditure in research and development. Fixing this imbalance and encouraging more private R&D investment is seen by many as the path to increased productivity. This context, overlooked by those seeking more funding for basic research only, is why it is important for Canada to set national research priorities and direct funding accordingly. Investing in Canada`s applied research will enhance our overall social and economic productivity.

The STIC report calls for greater collaboration between colleges, universities and businesses. Colleges offer industry-facing applied research capabilities that fill gaps in Canada`s R&D pipelines. Our focus on applied research, innovation and commercialization supports industry problem-solving in ways that are complementary to established, discovery-based research institutions. This is a strength, and a necessary facet of the R&D continuum. Supporting College applied research capacity is part of the federal Science and Technology Strategy (through the College and Community Innovation Program) and the Ontario Innovation Agenda.

The Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation’s Colleges Ontario Network for Industry Innovation funds industry problem-solving using College resources, students and faculty. By directly involving our students in industry-focused applied research we promote innovation literacy, producing graduates who have research, problem solving, leadership and entrepreneurship skills, and the ability to recognize innovation in the product development lifecycle. This is in addition to the job-ready skills our graduates already possess. College graduates are vital to the national economy. Canada ranks first in the OECD attainment of tertiary education only when College education is factored in.

The college applied research system is well positioned to play a lead role in strengthening national and regional capacity to innovate, working with research centres and industry partners to enhance competitiveness in the sectors we serve. Firms in Canada are not yet making effective use of the postsecondary research facilities we currently have, but this is changing. College applied research centres offer complementary capacity for R&D that enables industry to make more effective use of publicly funded research facilities. We offer services to industry that are not currently widely available in Canada – the applied research, commercialization-focused “last mile” services that industry needs in order to test market practicality assumptions. Broadening the potential outputs for R&D in a given area by supporting applied research will foster increased productivity, enabling Canada to realign R&D expenditure imbalances, and correct our long-standing poor record on innovation.

Should all research be directed toward a commercial outcome? No. Nor should commercialization become our only yardstick for measuring return on investment of tax dollars. Instead, call this a return on innovation. Funding for both basic and applied research that leads to innovation and commercialization is key to improving community economic and social development. We must certainly maintain and improve our commitment to funding basic research, but we must also see the very real benefits that will come from funding applied research and the commercialization of innovations. Canada has historically been good at invention, but less effective at exploiting innovations for social gain. This has to change. The STIC report is yet another wake-up call.

The Innovation Equation

The OCE Discovery 2009 is on now - drop by to see the GBC Research Labs' booth and learn more about the innovation equation:

Public-Private Partnerships + Research and Development = P3RD

Investing in industry-facing applied research and commercialization activities and fostering "open innovation" and complementarity across the R&D value chain will result in improved social and economic productivity in Canada.

Putting Healthcare on the Map

Speaking of innovation, Infonaut, a company with which the GBC Research Labs has been collaborating, was featured in a story in the Report on Business this week. The Real-Time Locating System for Improved Infection Control project is testing Infonaut's Intelligent Platform technology to track all assets in a healthcare institution. In the event of any outbreak, this practice would allow hospitals to identify, locate and isolate any equipment that has come into contact with infected patients in recent use. The Infonaut project is part of our NSERC CCIP research program.

This is the kind of applied research the country needs - innovation meeting real needs.