Why Inventions Fail to Become Innovation? Some Examples from Spain and Italy

Juan Francisco Galán
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Juan Francisco Galán: Complutense University of Madrid

Chapter Chapter 13 in Science, Technology and Innovation in the History of Economic Thought, 2023, pp 257-268 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract Countries like Spain or Italy have historically had a good level of invention; however, it is in innovation that Spain or Italy have had (and still have) a significant gap, especially if we compare them with nearby countries, such as Great Britain, Germany or even France. This tells us that turning invention into innovation, that is, into economic development, is not an easy task. In fact, there are many different reasons why inventions do not become innovations. This chapter reviews some of them, such as the lack of an innovative ecosystem or the aversion to novelty, paying special attention to a purely conceptual reason, ignorance of the true meaning of innovation, and showing how this lack of knowledge has been a fundamental factor in the poor results obtained. To achieve this, the case of Isaac Peral and his famous submarine is analysed.

Date: 2023
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:pshchp:978-3-031-40139-8_13

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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-40139-8_13

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