Twenty Challenges for Innovation Studies

Ben Martin

Working Papers from Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge

Abstract: With the field of innovation studies now half a century old, the occasion has been marked by several studies looking back to identify the main advances made over its lifetime. Starting from a list of 20 advances over the field's history, this discussion paper sets out 20 challenges for coming decades. The intention is to prompt a debate within the innovation studies community on what are, or should be, the key challenges for us to take up, and more generally on what sort of field we aspire to be. It is argued that the empirical focus of our studies has failed to keep pace with the fast changing world and economy, especially the shift from manufacturing to services and the increasingly urgent need for sustainability. Moreover, the very way we conceptualise, define, operationalise and analyse 'innovation' seems somewhat rooted in the past, leaving us less able to grapple with other less visible or 'dark' forms of innovation.

Keywords: innovation studies; science policy; research challenges; dark innovation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O30 O31 O32 O38 Q55 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his, nep-sbm and nep-tid
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (20)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/cbrwp475.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Twenty challenges for innovation studies (2016)
Working Paper: Twenty Challenges for Innovation Studies (2013)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cbr:cbrwps:wp475

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Ruth Newman ().