Invention and Innovation are obviously closely interrelated. But innovation is about economics, while discovery and invention are about knowledge. Innovation is about now, discovery is about now and the future. The problems arise when we start using the same measuring stick (or is it STIC?) and the same time scale to evaluate their respective successes and failures. The brilliant Chinese “fast follower” innovation has been extremely successful, but it has nothing to do with Chinese support for R&D.
We keep hearing about how Canada needs to invest in “innovation”, which will set us free from a non-sustainable resource based economy. Government officials and policy-makers keep tying their support for R&D to the premise that it will immediately generate the required innovation for a prosperous economy. Following suit, academic researchers, starving for government funds, keep making bold promises and suggesting that R&D is essentially an “instantaneous” driver of innovation, hence of success and prosperity in the “knowledge economy”. No wonder the pundits keep telling us that Canada is not getting enough bang for its buck from university research.
Rob Annan argues that innovation is quite distinct from the process of discovery and invention, “that innovation is about finding more efficient ways to do things, about increasing productivity, and about creating new markets – sometimes through the commercialization of discoveries and inventions”.
Innovation may involve invention, and it often does, but not always. Innovation is about economics, not knowledge. Its success can be measured in dollars and cents. This is not the case for discovery and invention. Innovation can be measured now. The impact of fundamental discoveries is –more often than not– beyond current grasp.
The brilliant Chinese “fast follower” innovation is the ultimate case in point. This innovation policy adopted by China has generated the biggest transfer of technology ever, has been a boon to Chinese economic growth, and has tested the global competitiveness of the West.
Behind the “fast follower” innovation is “a combination of state-driven policies — requiring Western companies to partner with Chinese firms to do business; demanding transfer of the latest technologies in exchange for access to markets; favoring “indigenous innovation” in government purchasing; fencing off green and other industries from foreign competition; offering low-interest state-bank loans to local champions. This industrial policy is at odds with WTO standards, but is a boon to Chinese economic growth and a long-term threat to U.S. global competitiveness”.
This is an innovation process that has nothing to do with current Chinese R&D. It just adapts quickly to whatever already works elsewhere.
On the other hand, inventions derived from fundamental discoveries will sooner or later generate innovations that will significantly impact (positively or negatively–think the arms race) our world. Many are now grumbling about Canada’s $3-billion investment in the Human Genome Project (HGP), and the hundreds of billions in US government funding that has gone into bio-sciences without any significant return. The bio-tech industry hasn’t yet become the next Silicon Valley, and the research did not lead to new companies, jobs, or economic growth in general. But does anyone question the importance of these discoveries for the future of humankind? Granted, “Personalized Medicine” and its related economic innovations remain a promise for some future date. But no one can deny that the HGP and the sequencing and amplification methods developed to complete it, have been a phenomenal success story for R&D.
There are of course people who would argue that we should be much more like the Chinese and less like the Americans. In fact, some argue that we spend way too much on basic research that doesn’t give immediate economic spin-off. Why not direct that money to “innovation”? Some even say that some of it should be directed to “marketing”! If the Americans want to pay for the HGP let them. Why do we need it?
Well, let’s again look at what the Chinese are doing. They have increased R&D spending by 40% between 2007 and 2009, while R&D spending in the US will go down (after adjusting for inflation) in 2009. Guess where the new innovations are likely to come from in the future? In other words, the Chinese seem to have optimized their interests by capitalizing on a –surely questionable but efficient– “fast follower innovation device” for the short-term, while investing in R&D to keep their options open and stay in the game for the innovations of the future.
It is therefore time to stop making the case for deliverable-based academic research by overstating how it will drive innovation in real time. We should say it as it is. University research is a worthwhile endeavor to increase our knowledge and understanding of our world. It also contributes enormously to a modern, innovative economy, as a repository of advanced technical knowledge, a training ground for HQP, and also as a generator of inventions. Some will be exploited immediately, but the best and deepest might not exhibit their innovative power till far in the future. It is also valuable for its own sake.