Discovery and application of exemplary models of innovation
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Introduction In order to be disruptive and impactful, innovation must transit the complete path, from initial question to discontinuous or revolutionary improvement to yield application at scale (Figure 1). We focus on innovations that have led to largescale application because if one wants to change the world, reshape an entire industry, or move the needle of a large corporation, then scale is everything. Many organizations would like to be more innovative. The present work is focused on Stanford University and identifies approaches and factors that appear to be correlated with successful innovation in the areas of materials science, energy, and the environment. Researchers at Stanford have a long history of innovations that have led to broader impact.1,2 In 1970, Stanford established the Office of Technology Licensing,3 and in the four decades since then, Stanford has generated more than 8000 patent disclosures and more than 3000 technology licenses. While many organizations excel at innovation, this article will only briefly describe illustrative innovation programs at a few institutions (see the sidebar on Other research institutions). Currently, the subject of innovation is receiving much attention. A recent issue of MRS Bulletin4 was devoted to materials, engineering, and innovation. Our goal in the present
study is to explore what successful innovation looks like by examining the experiences of innovators. We hope to advance the understanding of innovation and shed light on how all organizations can be more innovative. This is a preliminary study based on synthesizing interviews with a small number of successful researchers at Stanford University. This article also draws upon the authors’ experiences in corporate leadership, venture capital, government, and university research administration. Each researcher we spoke with has a unique vantage point and a particular mode of problem solving that we have tried to categorize and describe. Regardless of their particular characteristics, all innovators operated within a gap between the state of the art today and a vision of what could be. Within this gap, they maneuvered to find new ideas and used rigorous and methodical approaches to test the efficacy of the ideas and build toward the envisioned result. While researchers varied in how they identified the gap, sourced new ideas, and tested solutions, all innovators sought to bring about a new vision by applying novel sets of tools and ideas. We propose a framework for understanding modes of innovation that may be useful to managers seeking to promote entrepreneurial risk taking and innovation inside organizations, such as within research and development groups.
Stephen J. Eglash, School of Engineering, Stanford University, USA; [email protected] Sarah M. Rizk, Azevtec, USA; [email protected] doi:10.1557/mrs.2016.111
• VOLUME 41 • JUNE 2016 Materials Research Society BULLETIN 2016 www.mrs.org/bulletin Downloaded© from http:/www.cambridge.org/core. University of Massachusetts Amherst, on 09 Dec 2016 at 16:18:48, MRS
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