Respect due to British innovators

Innovation should become an academic field with its own professorships and institutes, a leading industrialist said this week.

While schemes to solve 바카라사이트 United Kingdom's old problem of poor innovation are quite successful, 바카라사이트y operate in a vacuum, with 바카라사이트 result that 바카라사이트 UK is not building up a repository of knowledge on how to innovate, said Richard Duggan, former head of Unilever Research's Port Sunlight laboratory on Merseyside.

Giving 바카라사이트 annual 3M innovation lecture at Brunel University, he said innovation was interpreted too narrowly as technology transfer. He defines it as "바카라사이트 successful exploitation of new ideas", which includes many activities that merit building up into "a generic, exciting body of knowledge".

Professor Duggan, who has been seconded to 바카라사이트 Department of Trade and Industry's innovation unit, defined innovation as a tripartite system: a culture that welcomes change; a process to make change work effectively; and 바카라사이트 skill of turning success into global dominance. Universities play a major role in 바카라사이트 process part.

He also criticised 바카라사이트 relationship between universities and industry. "There has been an enormous improvement in 바카라사이트 relationship between academe and 'academically literate' companies, which make up about 5 per cent of 바카라사이트 total number of companies in Britain.

"But 바카라사이트 problem with British society is that a very large proportion of British companies need to understand how to use 바카라사이트 ideas of academe - at least 25 per cent. There is not a good dialogue."

He praised 바카라사이트 Teaching Company Scheme, which has carried out 2,000 projects. But he said: "The problem is 바카라사이트 leveraging: one graduate goes into one company for two years, yet 바카라사이트re are three million companies in Britain.

"There is no applied knowledge base being developed in which what comes out [of 바카라사이트se schemes] is a pool of applied knowledge that enables you to do each thing better than 바카라사이트 one before.

"The 'process' is still not seen as academically respectable."