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Research conducted at UCL on innovation and innovation systems in Central and Eastern European countries is rooted in a neo-Schumpeterian perspective rather than in mainstream transition perspectives. This research has impacted policy process and analysis through the lead researcher's extensive participation in high-level advisory activities for international organisations (World Bank, European Commission, UN Economic Commission for Europe, etc.) and national governments in Central and Eastern Europe (Czech Republic, Belarus, Ukraine, Slovakia, Slovenia). This led to significant changes in research policy and funding, e.g. a new call within the European Union's FP7 programme and changed innovation strategies in Slovenia and Belarus.
Work undertaken at the University of Manchester (UoM) forms a central plank of the UK Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) `Economics Paper 15' (EP15), and provides key support to the growth agenda championed by the Coalition Government (2010-date); with the `Innovation and Research Strategy for Growth' (IRSG) published on 8th December 2011. More explicitly, IRSG prioritises business research and development (R&D) in areas where the UK excels, whilst also seeking to develop a wider UK innovation ecosystem that includes universities alongside key knowledge producers. Impact can be observed in recent developments in R&D investment support, and in the strengthening of stronger programmes and policies to support innovation. The research also features strongly in European Union (EU) research, and within the context of shaping the Australian innovation agenda.
Governments and international agencies have traditionally understood innovation to comprise the production and marketing of new products or processes that lead to economic growth and which emerge from corporate research and development (R&D) expenditure. The research underpinning this case has shown that innovation is a more complex process than was previously understood and takes different forms in different sectors. It has led the British Government and the OECD to measure, and to collect data on, innovation in new and more sophisticated ways; and to offer new guidance to firms on the factors that drive innovation and the most appropriate forms of innovation in different sectors.
Research at the Centre for Business Research (CBR) contributed to the 2010 Hauser report, which advocated the establishment of Technology Innovation Centres (TICs), and played a central part in subsequent discussions and decisions about the realisation of the report into legislation. This led to the UK government announcing a £200m programme to establish these centres, subsequently termed Catapult Centres. To date, seven Catapult Centres have been established (cell therapy, digital economy, future cities, high value manufacturing, renewable energy, satellite applications and transport) and the policy is set to expand in two further areas, energy systems and diagnostics for medicine. In July 2013, a further £185m was committed to the programme. Private sector funds are intended to bring public and private funding together on the programme to over £1 billion in the next few years.
Our research on life-science innovation, its regulation and governance has led to three systematic frameworks with which we conduct `action research' with decision-makers in government and companies: TARGET, which supports regional R&D policy-making; AGIT, which focuses on improving policy and the regulation of life-science innovation; and ALSIS, which allows decision-makers in companies systematically to work through the decisions they will need to make in innovation processes. Users of all three frameworks in both government and companies testify to the way in which they have led to improved decision-making. Our lead researcher, Tait, has applied insights from AGIT in high-level policy roles in areas such as synthetic biology and cell-based therapies, and others involved testify to the impact of her interventions. Other evidence of impact includes companies finding this research valuable enough to partner with us in it.
Research by SPRU — Science and Technology Policy Research — at the University of Sussex changed the way in which government records and supports innovative activities and led to new policy measures, including the Innovation Index, the Public Services Innovation Laboratory, the Whitehall Innovation Hub and the Government Annual Innovation Report. These policy initiatives address SPRU's research findings that innovation was previously only narrowly conceived in policy, being seen as an activity driven by commercial R&D. The new policies, which generate benefits in both business and the public sector, are underpinned by SPRU research that revealed areas of innovation in the economy previously ignored, for example in innovation in the public sector and in the creative industries.
The ecosystem approach has been advocated as a way of moving consideration of biodiversity and the environment closer to the centre of decision-making. A conceptual `cascade model', developed by Haines-Young and Potschin, has successfully overcome the challenge of the ecosystem approach by showing how it can be used in practice. The cascade model forms the basis of the Common International Classification of Ecosystem Services (CICES), recently introduced by the European Environment Agency (EEA), and has changed how UK and European policy-makers define the relationship between nature and the economy.
Research undertaken at the Centre for Research in Innovation Management (CENTRIM) has demonstrated the company characteristics that contribute to successful innovation. The research provided the core body of knowledge used by the Managing Innovation training programme that has been used by more than 5,000 managers worldwide. The programme presents the findings of research in powerful, accessible and usable ways. It has been adopted by some of the world's most innovative companies, including Medtronic, Cisco Systems and Abbott Laboratories, to stimulate personal development and organisational change. A Managing Innovation train-the-trainer programme has been developed that has provided intensive development for certified trainers and facilitated the roll-out of this programme through Australia, Brazil, Chile, Denmark, Poland, Mexico, Tanzania, USA and Venezuela.
A Responsible Innovation Framework developed by Prof Owen is transforming how Research Councils and the Technology Strategy Board (TSB) fund and deliver programmes of science and innovation. The Framework recently became a central element of EPSRC's research policy. It has supported key governance decisions by EPSRC concerning the first, contentious UK field trial of climate engineering technology. It was embedded in EPSRC's Delivery Plan and Doctoral Training Centres, and TSB's Synthetic Biology Roadmap, Industrial Feasibility and Innovation and Knowledge Centre programmes. It has been an important input into a restructuring by the European Commission of the European Research Area, underpinning its Horizon 2020 Strategy and Innovation Union.
The promotion of innovation adoption in high-tech small firms (HTSFs) has long been a European priority, but despite decades of attention, there is still a dearth of innovative HTSFs and, worryingly low participation levels of HTSFs in European R&D and innovation funding programmes. To capitalise on emerging high-tech markets it is imperative that HTSFs have the capacity to exploit these new opportunities and crucially, to contribute to the development of a modern economy. This multidisciplinary impact case investigates how to encourage the involvement of HTSFs in European funding projects. The impact of this research includes; methods for promoting the adoption of high-tech innovation across Europe and the development of European HTSF innovation and R&D funding policy recommendations that feed into the European Parliament, Horizon 2020 and numerous national and European high-tech associations and influential EC innovation networks.