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Friday, August 6, 2021

Pro-nuclear movement

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
Patrick Moore in 2009. Moore was opposed to nuclear power in the 1970s but has come to be in favor of it. Moore is supported by the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) and in 2009 he chaired their Clean and Safe Energy Coalition. As chair, he suggested that the public is not as opposed to nuclear energy as they were in decades past.

There are large variations in peoples’ understanding of the issues surrounding nuclear power, including the technology itself, climate change, and energy security. Proponents of nuclear energy contend that nuclear power is a sustainable energy source that reduces carbon emissions and increases energy security by decreasing dependence on imported energy sources. Opponents believe that nuclear power poses many threats to people and the environment. While nuclear power has historically been opposed by many environmentalist organisations, some support it, as do some scientists.

Context

During a two-day symposium on "Atomic Power in Australia" at the New South Wales University of Technology, Sydney, which began on 31 August 1954, Professors Marcus Oliphant (left), Homi Jehangir Bhabha (centre) and Philip Baxter, share a cup of tea

Nuclear energy remains a controversial area of public policy. The debate about nuclear power peaked during the 1970s and 1980s, when it "reached an intensity unprecedented in the history of technology controversies", in some countries.

Proponents of nuclear energy point to the fact nuclear power produces virtually no conventional air pollution, greenhouse gases, and smog, in contrast to fossil fuel sources of energy. Proponents argue perceived risks of storing waste are exaggerated, and point to an operational safety record in the Western world which is excellent in comparison to the other major kinds of power plants. Historically, there have been numerous proponents of nuclear energy, including Georges Charpak, Glenn T. Seaborg, Edward Teller, Alvin M. Weinberg, Eugene Wigner, Ted Taylor, and Jeff Eerkens. There are also scientists who write favorably about nuclear energy in terms of the broader energy landscape, including Robert B. Laughlin, Michael McElroy, and Vaclav Smil. In particular, Laughlin writes in "Powering the Future" (2011) that expanded use of nuclear power will be nearly inevitable, either because of a political choice to leave fossil fuels in the ground, or because fossil fuels become depleted.

Lobbying and public relations activities

Globally, there are dozens of companies with an interest in the nuclear industry, including Areva, BHP, Cameco, China National Nuclear Corporation, EDF, Iberdrola, Nuclear Power Corporation of India, Ontario Power Generation, Rosatom, Tokyo Electric Power Company, and Vattenfall. Many of these companies lobby politicians and others about nuclear power expansion, undertake public relation activities, petition government authorities, as well as influence public policy through referendum campaigns and involvement in elections.

The nuclear industry has "tried a variety of strategies to persuade the public to accept nuclear power", including the publication of numerous "fact sheets" that discuss issues of public concern. Nuclear proponents have worked to boost public support by offering newer, safer, reactor designs. These designs include those that incorporate passive safety and Small Modular Reactors.

Since 2000 the nuclear industry has undertaken an international media and lobbying campaign to promote nuclear power as a solution to the greenhouse effect and climate change. Though reactor operation is free of carbon dioxide emissions, other stages of the nuclear fuel chain – from uranium mining, to reactor decommissioning and radioactive waste management – use fossil fuels and hence emit carbon dioxide.

The Nuclear Energy Institute has formed various sub-groups to promote nuclear power. These include the Washington-based Clean and Safe Energy Coalition, which was formed in 2006 and led by Patrick Moore. Christine Todd Whitman, former head of the USEPA has also been involved. Clean Energy America is another group also sponsored by the NEI.

In Britain, James Lovelock well known for his Gaia Hypothesis began to support nuclear power in 2004. He is patron of the Supporters of Nuclear Energy. SONE also campaigns against wind power. The main nuclear lobby group in Britain is FORATOM.

As of 2014, the U.S. nuclear industry has begun a new lobbying effort, hiring three former senators — Evan Bayh, a Democrat; Judd Gregg, a Republican; and Spencer Abraham, a Republican — as well as William M. Daley, a former staffer to President Obama. The initiative is called Nuclear Matters, and it has begun a newspaper advertising campaign.

Organizations supporting nuclear power

In March 2017, a bipartisan group of eight senators, including five Republicans and three Democrats introduced S. 512, the Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act (NEIMA). The legislation would help to modernize the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), support the advancement of the nation's nuclear industry and develop the regulatory framework to enable the licensing of advanced nuclear reactors, while improving the efficiency of uranium regulation. Letters of support for this legislation were provided by thirty-six organizations, including for profit enterprises, non-profit organizations and educational institutions. The most prominent entities from that group and other well-known organizations actively supporting the continued or expanded use of nuclear power as a solution for providing clean, reliable energy include:

The United States generates about 19% of its electricity from nuclear power plants. Nearly 60% of all clean energy generated in the U.S. comes from nuclear power. Studies have shown that closing a nuclear power plant results in greatly increased carbon emissions as only burning coal or natural gas can make up for the massive amount of energy lost from a nuclear power plant. Even though there have long been protests against nuclear power, the effect of long-term scrutiny has elevated safety within the industry, making nuclear power the safest form of energy in operation today, despite the fact that many continue to fear it. Nuclear power plants create thousands of jobs, many in health and safety jobs, and seldom experience protests from area residents, as they bring large amounts of economic activity, attract educated employees and leave the air clear safe, unlike oil, coal or gas plants, which bring disease and environmental damage to their workers and neighbors. Nuclear engineers have traditionally worked, directly or indirectly, in the nuclear power industry, in academia or for national laboratories. More recently, young nuclear engineers have started to innovate and launch new companies, becoming entrepreneurs in order to bring their enthusiasm for using the power of the atom to address the climate crisis. As of June 2015, Third Way released a report identifying 48 nuclear start-ups or projects organized to work on nuclear innovations in what is being called "advanced nuclear" designs. Current research in the industry is directed at producing economical, proliferation-resistant reactor designs with passive safety features. Although government labs research the same areas as industry, they also study a myriad of other issues such as nuclear fuels and nuclear fuel cycles, advanced reactor designs, and nuclear weapon design and maintenance. A principal pipeline for trained personnel for US reactor facilities is the Navy Nuclear Power Program. The job outlook for nuclear engineering from the year 2012 to the year 2022 is predicted to grow 9% due to many elder nuclear engineers retiring, safety systems needing to be updated in power plants, and the advancements made in nuclear medicine.

Individuals supporting nuclear power

Many people, including former opponents of nuclear energy, now say that nuclear energy is necessary for reducing carbon dioxide emissions. They recognize that the threat to humanity from climate change is far worse than any risk associated with nuclear energy. Many of these supporters, but not all, acknowledge that renewable energy is also important to the effort to eliminate emissions. Early environmentalists who publicly voiced support for nuclear power include James Lovelock, originator of the Gaia hypothesis, Patrick Moore, an early member of Greenpeace and former president of Greenpeace Canada, George Monbiot and Stewart Brand, creator of the Whole Earth Catalog. Lovelock goes further to refute claims about the danger of nuclear energy and its waste products. In a January 2008 interview, Moore said that "It wasn't until after I'd left Greenpeace and the climate change issue started coming to the forefront that I started rethinking energy policy in general and realised that I had been incorrect in my analysis of nuclear as being some kind of evil plot." There are increasing numbers of scientists and laymen who are environmentalists with views that depart from the mainstream environmental stance that rejects a role for nuclear power in the climate fight (once labelled "Nuclear Greens," some now consider themselves Ecomodernists). Some of these include:

Scientists

James Edward Hansen
 
Prof. Barry W. Brook

Non-scientists

Open letter signatories

Climate and energy scientists in 2013: there is no credible path to climate stabilization that does not include a substantial role for nuclear power

Conservation biologists in 2014: to replace the burning of fossil fuels, if we are to have any chance of mitigating severe climate change […we] need to accept a substantial role for advanced nuclear power systems with complete fuel recycling

The following is a list of people that signed the open letter:

Future prospects

The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, located in France, is the world's largest and most advanced experimental tokamak nuclear fusion reactor project. A collaboration between the European Union (EU), India, Japan, China, Russia, South Korea and the United States, the project aims to make a transition from experimental studies of plasma physics to electricity-producing fusion power plants. However, the World Nuclear Association says that nuclear fusion "presents so far insurmountable scientific and engineering challenges". Construction of the ITER facility began in 2007, but the project has run into many delays and budget overruns. The facility is now not expected to begin operations until the year 2027 – 11 years after initially anticipated.

Another nuclear power program gaining momentum recently is The Energy Impact Center's OPEN100 project. Revealed in 2020, OPEN100 is an open-source approach to nuclear plant design. The large costs commonly associated with nuclear power are one of the main objections for supporting research and investing in nuclear plants. In an effort to quell those concerns, the OPEN100 project aims to share the engineering behind successful nuclear deployment in the past to create the foundation for a new generation of power plants that are safe, economically sound, and also easier to build.

 

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Industrial Revolution in the United States

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 

The Industrial Revolution was an epoch during the first 100 years of United States history where the economy progressed from manual labor and farm labor to a greater degree of industrialization based on labor. There were many improvements in technology and manufacturing fundamentals with the result that greatly improved overall production and economic growth in the United States. The Industrial Revolution occurred in two distinct phases, the First Industrial Revolution occurred during the latter part of the 18th century through the first half of the 19th century and the Second Industrial Revolution advanced following the Civil War. Among the main contributors to the First Industrial Revolution were Samuel Slater's introduction of British Industrial methods in textile manufacturing to the United States, Eli Whitney’s invention of the Cotton gin, E. I. du Pont’s improvements in chemistry and gunpowder making, and other industrial advancements necessitated by the War of 1812, as well as the construction of the Erie Canal among other developments.

Samuel Slater – "Father of the American Industrial Revolution"

Origins

As Western Europe industrialized in the mid-to-late 1700s, the United States remained agrarian with resource processing, gristmills, and sawmills being the main industrial, non-agrarian output. As demand for U.S. resources increased, canals and railroads became important to the economic growth as transportation necessitated and the sparse U.S. population, especially in areas where resources were being extracted such as the Western frontier. This made it necessary to expand technological capabilities, which led to an Industrial Revolution in America as entrepreneurs, businesses competed with and learned from each other to develop better technology, fundamentally altering the U.S. economy. Some technologies that advanced the Industrial Revolution in the U.S. were appropriated from British designs by ambitious British entrepreneurs hoping to use the technology to create successful companies in the U.S.

One entrepreneur who is most associated with starting up the textiles industry in the U.S. and who initially brought the textile technology to the U.S. was Samuel Slater. Slater learned that Americans were interested in textile techniques used in England, but since exporting such technical designs were illegal in England, he memorized as much as he could and departed for New York. Moses Brown, a leading Rhode Island industrialist secured the services of Slater, with Slater promising to recreate British textile designs. After an initial investment by Brown to fulfill initial requirements, a mill successfully opened in 1793 being the first water-powered roller spinning textile mill in America. By 1800, Slater's mill had been duplicated by many other entrepreneurs as Slater grew wealthier and his techniques more and more popular, with Andrew Jackson calling Slater the "Father of the American Industrial Revolution". But Slater also earned the pejorative "Slater the Traitor" from many in Great Britain who felt he betrayed them in bringing British textile techniques to the Americas.

With the invention of the modern mechanical cotton gin by Eli Whitney in 1793, farmers now had the means to make cotton farming much more profitable. The era of King Cotton was underway by the early 1800s such that by the mid-1800s, Southern plantations supplied 75% of the world's cotton. The introduction of this new cotton gin was as unexpected as it was unprecedented. British textiles had expanded with no change in ginning principles in centuries. For the cotton producer, up front costs were higher but productivity improvement were clear and Whitney's original 1793 gin design was copied by many and improved upon.

The du Pont family emigrated to the United States due to repercussions from the French Revolution, bringing with them expertise in chemistry and gunpowder. E.I. du Pont observed that the quality of American gunpowder was poor, and so opened the Eleutherian Mills a gunpowder mill on Brandywine Creek in 1802. The mill served as home for du Pont's family as well as a center of business and social life, with employees living on or near the mill. The company grew rapidly and by the mid-19th century had become the largest supplier of gunpowder to the United States military.

Pennsylvanian Robert Fulton proposed plans for steam-powered vessels to both the United States and British governments in the late 1700s. Having developed significant technical knowledge in both France and Great Britain, Fulton returned to the United States working with Robert Livingston to open the first commercially successful steamboat operating between New York City and Albany. Fulton built a new steamboat sturdy enough to take down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, he was an early member on a commission to plan the Erie Canal, and Fulton designed the first working muscle-powered submarine, the Nautilus.

The Erie Canal was proposed in the 1780s, then re-proposed in 1807 with a survey being funded in 1808. Construction began in 1817 and the original canal was about 363 miles with 34 numbered locks, from Albany to Buffalo. Prior to the canal, bulk goods were limited to shipping by pack animal, there were no railways and water was the most cost-effective way to ship bulk goods. Use of this new canal was faster than using carts pulled by draft animals and cut transport costs by about 95%. The canal gave New York City's port a significant advantage over all other U.S. port cities and contributed to a growth in population in New York state as well as opening up regions farther west to settlement.

Labor and finance

Textile Mill in Winooski, Vermont

The First Industrial Revolution was marked by shift in labor, where in the United States an outwork system of labor shifted towards a factory system of labor. Throughout this period, which lasted into the mid-19th century much of the U.S. population remained in small scale agriculture. Despite a smaller percentage of the population working in industry then, the U.S. government did take action to try and expand and aid U.S. industry. This can be seen early in the nation's history with Alexander Hamilton's proposal of the "American School" ideas which supported high tariffs to protect U.S. industry. This idea was embraced by the Whig Party in the early 19th century with their support for Henry Clay's American System. This plan, proposed shortly after the War of 1812, supported not only tariffs to protect U.S. industry but also canals and roads to support the movement of manufactured goods around the country. As was the case in Britain, the First Industrial Revolution in the United States revolved heavily around the textile industry. Early U.S. textile plants were located next to rivers and streams as they would use the running water to power the machinery in the plant. This meant that much of the factories of the First Industrial Revolution existed in the Northeastern United States.

To aid the expansion of industry, Congress chartered the Bank of the United States in 1791, giving loans to help merchants and entrepreneurs secure needed capital. However, Jeffersonians saw this bank as an unconstitutional expansion of federal power, so when its charter expired in 1811, the Jeffersonian-dominated Congress did not renew it. State legislatures were persuaded to charter their own banks to continue helping merchants, artisans, and farmers who needed loans, and, by 1816, there were 246 state-chartered banks. With these banks, states were able to support internal transportation improvements, such as the Erie Canal, which stimulated economic development.

Impact of the Industrial Revolution on the United States

The Industrial Revolution altered the U.S. economy and set the stage for the United States to dominate technological change and growth in the Second Industrial Revolution and the Gilded Age. The Industrial Revolution also saw a decrease in labor shortages which had characterized the U.S. economy through its early years. This was partly due to a transportation revolution happening at the same time, low population density areas of the U.S. were better able to connect to the population centers through the Wilderness Road and the Erie Canal, with steamboats as well as rail transport. This led to a phenomenon of urbanization which increased the labor force available around larger cities such as New York City and Chicago, lessening the classic American labor shortages of the time. Also, quicker movement of resources and goods around the country drastically increased trade efficiency and output while allowing for an extensive transport base for the U.S. to grow during the Second Industrial Revolution.

Duplicating lathe
Blanchard lathe, powered by water, for creating stock identical to a pattern.

Techniques to make interchangeable parts were developed in the US, and allowed easy assembly and repair of firearms or other devices, minimizing the time and skill needed to repair or assemble devices. By the beginning of the Civil War, rifles with interchangeable parts had been developed, and after the war, more complex devices such as sewing machines and typewriters were made with interchangeable parts. In 1798, Eli Whitney obtained a government contract to manufacture 10,000 muskets in less than two years. By 1801, he had failed to produce a single musket and was called to Washington to justify his use of Treasury funds. There, he created a demonstration for Congress in which he assembled muskets from parts chosen randomly from his supply. While this demonstration was later proved to be fake, it popularized the idea of interchangeable parts, and Eli Whitney continued using the concept to allow relatively unskilled laborers to produce and repair weapons quickly and at a low cost. Another important innovator is Thomas Blanchard, who in 1819 invented the Blanchard lathe, which could produce identical copies of wooden gun stocks.

Interchangeable parts made the development of the assembly line possible. In addition to making production faster, the assembly line eliminated the need for skilled craftsmen because each worker would only do one repetitive step instead of the entire process.

The first Industrial Revolution had a profound effect on labor in the U.S. Companies from the era, such as the Boston Associates, would recruit thousands of New England farm girls to work in textile mills. These girls often received much lower wages than men, though the work and pay gave young women a sense of independence that they did not feel working on a farm. The First Industrial Revolution also marked the beginning of the rise of wage labor in the United States. As wage labor grew over the next century, it would go on to profoundly change American Society.

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Innovation

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Thomas Edison with phonograph. Edison was one of the most prolific inventors in history, holding 1,093 U.S. patents in his name.

Innovation is the practical implementation of ideas that result in the introduction of new goods or services or improvement in offering goods or services. ISO TC 279 on innovation management proposes in the standards, ISO 56000:2020  to define innovation as "a new or changed entity creating or redistributing value". However, many scholars and governmental organizations have given their own definition of the concept. Some common element in the different definitions is a focus on newness, improvement and spread. It is also often viewed as taking place through the provision of more-effective products, processes, services, technologies, art works or business models that innovators make available to markets, governments and society. Innovation is related to, but not the same as, invention: innovation is more apt to involve the practical implementation of an invention (i.e. new / improved ability) to make a meaningful impact in a market or society, and not all innovations require a new invention.

Technical innovation often manifests itself via the engineering process when the problem being solved is of a technical or scientific nature. The opposite of innovation is exnovation.

Definition

Surveys of the literature on innovation have found a large variety of definitions. In 2009, Baregheh et al. found around 60 definitions in different scientific papers, while a 2014 survey found over 40. Based on their survey, Baragheh et al. attempted to define a multidisciplinary definition and arrived at the following definition:

"Innovation is the multi-stage process whereby organizations transform ideas into new/improved products, service or processes, in order to advance, compete and differentiate themselves successfully in their marketplace"

In an industrial survey of how the software industry defined innovation, the following definition given by Crossan and Apaydin was considered to be the most complete, which builds on the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) manual's definition:

Innovation is production or adoption, assimilation, and exploitation of a value-added novelty in economic and social spheres; renewal and enlargement of products, services, and markets; development of new methods of production; and the establishment of new management systems. It is both a process and an outcome.

Influential scholar Everett Rogers, defines it as follows:

"An idea, practice, or object that is perceived as new by an individual or other unit of adoption"

According to Kanter, innovation includes original invention and creative use and defines innovation as a generation, admission and realization of new ideas, products, services and processes.

Two main dimensions of innovation were degree of [novelty] (i.e. whether an innovation is new to the firm, new to the market, new to the industry, or new to the world) and kind of innovation (i.e. whether it is processor product-service system innovation). In recent organizational scholarship, researchers of workplaces have also distinguished innovation to be separate from creativity, by providing an updated definition of these two related but distinct constructs:

Workplace creativity concerns the cognitive and behavioral processes applied when attempting to generate novel ideas. Workplace innovation concerns the processes applied when attempting to implement new ideas. Specifically, innovation involves some combination of problem/opportunity identification, the introduction, adoption or modification of new ideas germane to organizational needs, the promotion of these ideas, and the practical implementation of these ideas.

Peter Drucker wrote:

Innovation is the specific function of entrepreneurship, whether in an existing business, a public service institution, or a new venture started by a lone individual in the family kitchen. It is the means by which the entrepreneur either creates new wealth-producing resources or endows existing resources with enhanced potential for creating wealth.

Creativity and innovation

In general, innovation is distinguished from creativity by its emphasis on the implementation of creative ideas in an economic setting. Amabile and Pratt in 2016, drawing on the literature, distinguish between creativity ("the production of novel and useful ideas by an individual or small group of individuals working together") and innovation ("the successful implementation of creative ideas within an organization").

Types

Several frameworks have been proposed for defining types of innovation.

Sustaining vs disruptive innovation

One framework proposed by Clayton Christensen draws a distinction between sustaining and disruptive innovations. Sustaining innovation is the improvement of a product or service based on the known needs of current customers (e.g. faster microprocessors, flat screen televisions). Disruptive innovation in contrast refers to a process by which a new product or service creates a new market (e.g. transistor radio, free crowdsourced encyclopedia, etc.), eventually displacing established competitors. According to Christensen, disruptive innovations are critical to long-term success in business.

Disruptive innovation is often enabled by disruptive technology. Marco Iansiti and Karim R. Lakhani define foundational technology as having the potential to create new foundations for global technology systems over the longer term. Foundational technology tends to transform business operating models as entirely new business models emerge over many years, with gradual and steady adoption of the innovation leading to waves of technological and institutional change that gain momentum more slowly. The advent of the packet-switched communication protocol TCP/IP—originally introduced in 1972 to support a single use case for United States Department of Defense electronic communication (email), and which gained widespread adoption only in the mid-1990s with the advent of the World Wide Web—is a foundational technology.

Four types model

Another framework was suggested by Henderson and Clark. They divide innovation into four types;

  • Radical innovation: "establishes a new dominant design and, hence, a new set of core design concepts embodied in components that are linked together in a new architecture." (p.11)
  • Incremental innovation: "refines and extends an established design. Improvement occurs in individual components, but the underlying core design concepts, and the links between them, remain the same." (p.11)
  • Architectural innovation: "innovation that changes only the relationships between them [the core design concepts]" (p.12)
  • Modular Innovation: "innovation that changes only the core design concepts of a technology" (p.12)

While Henderson and Clark as well as Christensen talk about technical innovation there are other kinds of innovation as well, such as service innovation and organizational innovation.

Non-economic innovation

The classical definition of innovation being limited to the primary goal of generating profit for a firm, has led others to define other types of innovation such as: social innovation, sustainable or green innovation, and responsible innovation.

History

The word "innovation" once had a quite different meaning. The first full-length discussion about innovation is the account by the Greek philosopher and historian Xenophon (430–355 BCE). He viewed the concept as multifaceted and connected it to political action. The word for innovation that he uses is 'Kainotomia' and before him it had been used in two plays by Aristophanes. Plato discussed innovation in his book Laws and was not very fond of the concept. He was skeptical to it in both culture (dancing and art) and education (he did not believe in introducing new games and toys to the kids). Aristotle did not like organizational innovations as he believed that all possible forms of organization had been discovered. (Politics II as cited by Benoît Godin 2015)

Before the 4th century in Rome, the words novitas and res nova / nova resmeant were used with either negative or positive judgment on the innovator. This concept meant renewing and was incorporated into the new word innovo in the centuries that followed. It was used in the Vulgate Bible in spiritual as well as political contexts. It was also used in poetry and then mainly had spiritual connotations but was also connected to political, material and cultural aspects.

In Machiavelli's The Prince (1513), innovation is described in a political setting. It is portrayed as a strategy a Prince may employ in order to cope with a constantly changing world as well as the corruption within it. Here innovation is described as introducing change in government (new laws and institutions) in Machiavelli's later book The Discourses (1528) innovation is described as imitation, as a return to the original that has been corrupted by people and by time. Thus for Machiavelli Innovation came with positive connotations. This is however an exception in the description of innovation from the 16th century and onward. No innovator from the renaissance until the late 19th century ever thought of applying the word innovator upon themselves, it was a word used to attack enemies.

The word "innovation" once had a different meaning. From the 1400s through the 1600s, the concept of innovation was pejorative – the term was an early-modern synonym for "rebellion", "revolt" and "heresy". In the 1800s people promoting capitalism saw socialism as an innovation and spent a lot of energy working against it. For instance Goldwin Smith saw the spread of social innovations as an attack on money and banks. These social innovations were socialism, communism, nationalization, cooperative associations.

In the 1900s the concept of innovation did not become popular until after the Second World War. This is the point in time when people started to talk about technological product innovation and tie it to the idea of economic growth and competitive advantage. Joseph Schumpeter (1883–1950) is often credited for being the one who made the term popular and he contributed greatly to the study of innovation economics,

In business and in economics, innovation can be a catalyst for growth. With rapid advancements in transportation and communications over the past few decades, the old concepts of factor endowments and comparative advantage which focused on an area's unique inputs are outmoded in today's global economy. Schumpeter argued that industries must incessantly revolutionize the economic structure from within, that is innovate with better or more effective processes and products, as well as market distribution, such as the connection from the craft shop to factory. He famously asserted that "creative destruction is the essential fact about capitalism". Entrepreneurs continuously look for better ways to satisfy their consumer base with improved quality, durability, service and price which come to fruition in innovation with advanced technologies and organizational strategies.

A prime example of innovation involved the boom of Silicon Valley startups out of the Stanford Industrial Park. In 1957, dissatisfied employees of Shockley Semiconductor, the company of Nobel laureate and co-inventor of the transistor William Shockley, left to form an independent firm, Fairchild Semiconductor. After several years, Fairchild developed into a formidable presence in the sector. Eventually, these founders left to start their own companies based on their own unique ideas, and then leading employees started their own firms. Over the next 20 years, this process resulted in the momentous startup-company explosion of information-technology firms. Silicon Valley began as 65 new enterprises born out of Shockley's eight former employees.

Another example involves business incubators – a phenomenon nurtured by governments around the world, close to knowledge clusters (mostly research-based) like universities or other Government Excellence Centres – which aim primarily to channel generated knowledge to applied innovation outcomes in order to stimulate regional or national economic growth.

Process of innovation

One of the early models included only three phases of innovation. According to Utterback (1971), these phases were: 1) idea generation, 2) problem solving, and 3) implementation. By the time one completed phase 2, one had an invention, but until one got it to the point of having an economic impact, one didn't have an innovation. Diffusion wasn't considered a phase of innovation. Focus at this point in time was on manufacturing.

All organizations can innovate, including for example hospitals, universities, and local governments. The organization requires a proper structure in order to retain competitive advantage. Organizations can also improve profits and performance by providing work groups opportunities and resources to innovate, in addition to employee's core job tasks. Executives and managers have been advised to break away from traditional ways of thinking and use change to their advantage. The world of work is changing with the increased use of technology and companies are becoming increasingly competitive. Companies will have to downsize or reengineer their operations to remain competitive. This will affect employment as businesses will be forced to reduce the number of people employed while accomplishing the same amount of work if not more.

For instance, former Mayor Martin O’Malley pushed the City of Baltimore to use CitiStat, a performance-measurement data and management system that allows city officials to maintain statistics on several areas from crime trends to the conditions of potholes. This system aided in better evaluation of policies and procedures with accountability and efficiency in terms of time and money. In its first year, CitiStat saved the city $13.2 million. Even mass transit systems have innovated with hybrid bus fleets to real-time tracking at bus stands. In addition, the growing use of mobile data terminals in vehicles, that serve as communication hubs between vehicles and a control center, automatically send data on location, passenger counts, engine performance, mileage and other information. This tool helps to deliver and manage transportation systems.

Still other innovative strategies include hospitals digitizing medical information in electronic medical records. For example, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's HOPE VI initiatives turned severely distressed public housing in urban areas into revitalized, mixed-income environments; the Harlem Children’s Zone used a community-based approach to educate local area children; and the Environmental Protection Agency's brownfield grants facilitates turning over brownfields for environmental protection, green spaces, community and commercial development.

Sources of innovation

Innovation may occur as a result of a focus effort by a range of different agents, by chance, or as a result of a major system failure. According to Peter F. Drucker, the general sources of innovations are different changes in industry structure, in market structure, in local and global demographics, in human perception, mood and meaning, in the amount of already available scientific knowledge, etc.

Original model of three phases of the process of Technological Change

In the simplest linear model of innovation the traditionally recognized source is manufacturer innovation. This is where an agent (person or business) innovates in order to sell the innovation. Specifically, R&D measurement is the commonly used input for innovation, in particular in the business sector, named Business Expenditure on R&D (BERD) that grew over the years on the expenses of the declining R&D invested by the public sector.

Another source of innovation, only now becoming widely recognized, is end-user innovation. This is where an agent (person or company) develops an innovation for their own (personal or in-house) use because existing products do not meet their needs. MIT economist Eric von Hippel has identified end-user innovation as, by far, the most important and critical in his classic book on the subject, "The Sources of Innovation".

The robotics engineer Joseph F. Engelberger asserts that innovations require only three things:

  1. a recognized need
  2. competent people with relevant technology
  3. financial support

Innovation processes usually involve: identifying customer needs, macro and meso trends, developing competences, and finding financial support.

The Kline chain-linked model of innovation places emphasis on potential market needs as drivers of the innovation process, and describes the complex and often iterative feedback loops between marketing, design, manufacturing, and R&D.

Facilitating innovation

Innovation by businesses is achieved in many ways, with much attention now given to formal research and development (R&D) for "breakthrough innovations". R&D help spur on patents and other scientific innovations that leads to productive growth in such areas as industry, medicine, engineering, and government. Yet, innovations can be developed by less formal on-the-job modifications of practice, through exchange and combination of professional experience and by many other routes. Investigation of relationship between the concepts of innovation and technology transfer revealed overlap. The more radical and revolutionary innovations tend to emerge from R&D, while more incremental innovations may emerge from practice – but there are many exceptions to each of these trends.

Information technology and changing business processes and management style can produce a work climate favorable to innovation. For example, the software tool company Atlassian conducts quarterly "ShipIt Days" in which employees may work on anything related to the company's products. Google employees work on self-directed projects for 20% of their time (known as Innovation Time Off). Both companies cite these bottom-up processes as major sources for new products and features.

An important innovation factor includes customers buying products or using services. As a result, organizations may incorporate users in focus groups (user centred approach), work closely with so called lead users (lead user approach), or users might adapt their products themselves. The lead user method focuses on idea generation based on leading users to develop breakthrough innovations. U-STIR, a project to innovate Europe's surface transportation system, employs such workshops. Regarding this user innovation, a great deal of innovation is done by those actually implementing and using technologies and products as part of their normal activities. Sometimes user-innovators may become entrepreneurs, selling their product, they may choose to trade their innovation in exchange for other innovations, or they may be adopted by their suppliers. Nowadays, they may also choose to freely reveal their innovations, using methods like open source. In such networks of innovation the users or communities of users can further develop technologies and reinvent their social meaning.

One technique for innovating a solution to an identified problem is to actually attempt an experiment with many possible solutions. This technique was famously used by Thomas Edison's laboratory to find a version of the incandescent light bulb economically viable for home use, which involved searching through thousands of possible filament designs before settling on carbonized bamboo.

This technique is sometimes used in pharmaceutical drug discovery. Thousands of chemical compounds are subjected to high-throughput screening to see if they have any activity against a target molecule which has been identified as biologically significant to a disease. Promising compounds can then be studied; modified to improve efficacy, reduce side effects, and reduce cost of manufacture; and if successful turned into treatments.

The related technique of A/B testing is often used to help optimize the design of web sites and mobile apps. This is used by major sites such as amazon.com, Facebook, Google, and Netflix. Procter & Gamble uses computer-simulated products and online user panels to conduct larger numbers of experiments to guide the design, packaging, and shelf placement of consumer products. Capital One uses this technique to drive credit card marketing offers.

Goals and failures

Programs of organizational innovation are typically tightly linked to organizational goals and objectives, to the business plan, and to market competitive positioning. One driver for innovation programs in corporations is to achieve growth objectives. As Davila et al. (2006) notes, "Companies cannot grow through cost reduction and reengineering alone... Innovation is the key element in providing aggressive top-line growth, and for increasing bottom-line results".

One survey across a large number of manufacturing and services organizations found, ranked in decreasing order of popularity, that systematic programs of organizational innovation are most frequently driven by: improved quality, creation of new markets, extension of the product range, reduced labor costs, improved production processes, reduced materials, reduced environmental damage, replacement of products/services, reduced energy consumption, conformance to regulations.

These goals vary between improvements to products, processes and services and dispel a popular myth that innovation deals mainly with new product development. According to Andrea Vaona and Mario Pianta, some example goals of innovation could stem from two different types of technological strategies: technological competitiveness and active price competitiveness. Technological competitiveness may have a tendency to be pursued by smaller firms and can be characterized as "efforts for market-oriented innovation, such as a strategy of market expansion and patenting activity." On the other hand, active price competitiveness is geared toward process innovations that lead to efficiency and flexibility, which tend to be pursued by large, established firms as they seek to expand their market foothold. Most of the goals could apply to any organization be it a manufacturing facility, marketing company, hospital or government. Whether innovation goals are successfully achieved or otherwise depends greatly on the environment prevailing in the organization.

Conversely, failure can develop in programs of innovations. The causes of failure have been widely researched and can vary considerably. Some causes will be external to the organization and outside its influence of control. Others will be internal and ultimately within the control of the organization. Internal causes of failure can be divided into causes associated with the cultural infrastructure and causes associated with the innovation process itself. Common causes of failure within the innovation process in most organizations can be distilled into five types: poor goal definition, poor alignment of actions to goals, poor participation in teams, poor monitoring of results, poor communication and access to information.

Diffusion

InnovationLifeCycle.jpg

Diffusion of innovation research was first started in 1903 by seminal researcher Gabriel Tarde, who first plotted the S-shaped diffusion curve. Tarde defined the innovation-decision process as a series of steps that include:

  1. knowledge
  2. forming an attitude
  3. a decision to adopt or reject
  4. implementation and use
  5. confirmation of the decision

Once innovation occurs, innovations may be spread from the innovator to other individuals and groups. This process has been proposed that the lifecycle of innovations can be described using the 's-curve' or diffusion curve. The s-curve maps growth of revenue or productivity against time. In the early stage of a particular innovation, growth is relatively slow as the new product establishes itself. At some point, customers begin to demand and the product growth increases more rapidly. New incremental innovations or changes to the product allow growth to continue. Towards the end of its lifecycle, growth slows and may even begin to decline. In the later stages, no amount of new investment in that product will yield a normal rate of return.

The s-curve derives from an assumption that new products are likely to have "product life" – ie, a start-up phase, a rapid increase in revenue and eventual decline. In fact, the great majority of innovations never get off the bottom of the curve, and never produce normal returns.

Innovative companies will typically be working on new innovations that will eventually replace older ones. Successive s-curves will come along to replace older ones and continue to drive growth upwards. In the figure above the first curve shows a current technology. The second shows an emerging technology that currently yields lower growth but will eventually overtake current technology and lead to even greater levels of growth. The length of life will depend on many factors.

Measures

Measuring innovation is inherently difficult as it implies commensurability so that comparisons can be made in quantitative terms. Innovation, however, is by definition novelty. Comparisons are thus often meaningless across products or service. Nevertheless, Edison et al. in their review of literature on innovation management found 232 innovation metrics. They categorized these measures along five dimensions; ie inputs to the innovation process, output from the innovation process, effect of the innovation output, measures to access the activities in an innovation process and availability of factors that facilitate such a process.

There are two different types of measures for innovation: the organizational level and the political level.

Organizational-level

The measure of innovation at the organizational level relates to individuals, team-level assessments, and private companies from the smallest to the largest company. Measure of innovation for organizations can be conducted by surveys, workshops, consultants, or internal benchmarking. There is today no established general way to measure organizational innovation. Corporate measurements are generally structured around balanced scorecards which cover several aspects of innovation such as business measures related to finances, innovation process efficiency, employees' contribution and motivation, as well benefits for customers. Measured values will vary widely between businesses, covering for example new product revenue, spending in R&D, time to market, customer and employee perception & satisfaction, number of patents, additional sales resulting from past innovations.

Political-level

For the political level, measures of innovation are more focused on a country or region competitive advantage through innovation. In this context, organizational capabilities can be evaluated through various evaluation frameworks, such as those of the European Foundation for Quality Management. The OECD Oslo Manual (1992) suggests standard guidelines on measuring technological product and process innovation. Some people consider the Oslo Manual complementary to the Frascati Manual from 1963. The new Oslo Manual from 2018 takes a wider perspective to innovation, and includes marketing and organizational innovation. These standards are used for example in the European Community Innovation Surveys.

Other ways of measuring innovation have traditionally been expenditure, for example, investment in R&D (Research and Development) as percentage of GNP (Gross National Product). Whether this is a good measurement of innovation has been widely discussed and the Oslo Manual has incorporated some of the critique against earlier methods of measuring. The traditional methods of measuring still inform many policy decisions. The EU Lisbon Strategy has set as a goal that their average expenditure on R&D should be 3% of GDP. In a study, the top spenders in terms of R&D in 2018 spent an average of 22% of their GP (Gross Profit) on R&D.

Indicators

Many scholars claim that there is a great bias towards the "science and technology mode" (S&T-mode or STI-mode), while the "learning by doing, using and interacting mode" (DUI-mode) is ignored and measurements and research about it rarely done. For example, an institution may be high tech with the latest equipment, but lacks crucial doing, using and interacting tasks important for innovation.

A common industry view (unsupported by empirical evidence) is that comparative cost-effectiveness research is a form of price control which reduces returns to industry, and thus limits R&D expenditure, stifles future innovation and compromises new products access to markets. Some academics claim cost-effectiveness research is a valuable value-based measure of innovation which accords "truly significant" therapeutic advances (ie providing "health gain") higher prices than free market mechanisms. Such value-based pricing has been viewed as a means of indicating to industry the type of innovation that should be rewarded from the public purse.

An Australian academic developed the case that national comparative cost-effectiveness analysis systems should be viewed as measuring "health innovation" as an evidence-based policy concept for valuing innovation distinct from valuing through competitive markets, a method which requires strong anti-trust laws to be effective, on the basis that both methods of assessing pharmaceutical innovations are mentioned in annex 2C.1 of the Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement.

Indices

Several indices attempt to measure innovation and rank entities based on these measures, such as:

Rankings

Common areas of focus include: high-tech companies, manufacturing, patents, post secondary education, research and development, and research personnel. The left ranking of the top 10 countries below is based on the 2020 Bloomberg Innovation Index. However, studies may vary widely; for example the Global Innovation Index 2016 ranks Switzerland as number one wherein countries like South Korea, Japan, and China do not even make the top ten.

Bloomberg Innovation Index 2020
Rank Country/Territory Index
1  Germany 87.38
2  South Korea 87.3
3  Singapore 85.57
4   Switzerland 85.49
5  Sweden 84.78
6  Israel 84.49
7  Finland 84.15
8  Denmark 83.21
9  United States 81.40
10  France 81.67
 
Global Innovation Index 2020
Rank Country/Territory Index
1   Switzerland 66.08
2  Sweden 62.47
3  United States 60.56
4  United Kingdom 59.78
5  Netherlands 58.76
6  Denmark 57.53
7  Finland 57.02
8  Singapore 56.61
9  Germany 56.55
10  South Korea 56.11
 
Innovation Indicator 2018
Rank Country/Territory Index
1  Singapore 73
2   Switzerland 72
3  Belgium 59
4  Germany 55
5  Sweden 54
6  United States 52
7  United Kingdom 52
8  Denmark 51
9  Ireland 51
10  South Korea 51

Rate of innovation

In 2005 Jonathan Huebner, a physicist working at the Pentagon's Naval Air Warfare Center, argued on the basis of both U.S. patents and world technological breakthroughs, per capita, that the rate of human technological innovation peaked in 1873 and has been slowing ever since. In his article, he asked "Will the level of technology reach a maximum and then decline as in the Dark Ages?" In later comments to New Scientist magazine, Huebner clarified that while he believed that we will reach a rate of innovation in 2024 equivalent to that of the Dark Ages, he was not predicting the reoccurrence of the Dark Ages themselves.

John Smart criticized the claim and asserted that technological singularity researcher Ray Kurzweil and others showed a "clear trend of acceleration, not deceleration" when it came to innovations. The foundation replied to Huebner the journal his article was published in, citing Second Life and eHarmony as proof of accelerating innovation; to which Huebner replied. However, Huebner's findings were confirmed in 2010 with U.S. Patent Office data. and in a 2012 paper.

Innovation and development

The theme of innovation as a tool to disrupting patterns of poverty has gained momentum since the mid-2000s among major international development actors such as DFID, Gates Foundation's use of the Grand Challenge funding model, and USAID's Global Development Lab. Networks have been established to support innovation in development, such as D-Lab at MIT. Investment funds have been established to identify and catalyze innovations in developing countries, such as DFID's Global Innovation Fund, Human Development Innovation Fund, and (in partnership with USAID) the Global Development Innovation Ventures.

The United States has to continue to play on the same level of playing field as its competitors in federal research. This can be achieved being strategically innovative through investment in basic research and science".

Government policies

Given the noticeable effects on efficiency, quality of life, and productive growth, innovation is a key factor in society and economy. Consequently, policymakers have long worked to develop environments that will foster innovation and its resulting positive benefits, from funding Research and Development to supporting regulatory change, funding the development of innovation clusters, and using public purchasing and standardisation to 'pull' innovation through.

For instance, experts are advocating that the U.S. federal government launch a National Infrastructure Foundation, a nimble, collaborative strategic intervention organization that will house innovations programs from fragmented silos under one entity, inform federal officials on innovation performance metrics, strengthen industry-university partnerships, and support innovation economic development initiatives, especially to strengthen regional clusters. Because clusters are the geographic incubators of innovative products and processes, a cluster development grant program would also be targeted for implementation. By focusing on innovating in such areas as precision manufacturing, information technology, and clean energy, other areas of national concern would be tackled including government debt, carbon footprint, and oil dependence. The U.S. Economic Development Administration understand this reality in their continued Regional Innovation Clusters initiative. The United States also has to integrate her supply-chain and improve her applies research capability and downstream process innovation.

In addition, federal grants in R&D, a crucial driver of innovation and productive growth, should be expanded to levels similar to Japan, Finland, South Korea, and Switzerland in order to stay globally competitive. Also, such grants should be better procured to metropolitan areas, the essential engines of the American economy.

Many countries recognize the importance of research and development as well as innovation including Japan's Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT); Germany's Federal Ministry of Education and Research; and the Ministry of Science and Technology in the People's Republic of China. Furthermore, Russia's innovation programme is the Medvedev modernisation programme which aims at creating a diversified economy based on high technology and innovation. Also, the Government of Western Australia has established a number of innovation incentives for government departments. Landgate was the first Western Australian government agency to establish its Innovation Program.

Regions have taken a more proactive role in supporting innovation. Many regional governments are setting up regional innovation agency to strengthen regional innovation capabilities. In Medellin, Colombia, the municipality of Medellin created in 2009 Ruta N to transform the city into a knowledge city.

 

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