FEATURE FIFTY YEARS OF THE ESRC
economy and these firms are major wealth creators for Britain. We don’t want to lose them, but we have very little experimental knowledge of why they might choose to move elsewhere.” Beyond the linear model Linked to this concern is the related academic study of innovation. David Wield, professor of innovation and development at the Open University and co-director of the Innogen Institute at the OU and the University of Edinburgh, points out that innovation has always been “a hybrid and interdisciplinary subject”, involving scientists and engineers as well as social scientists. He adds that UK players in this area, such as Innovate UK, are informed users of the rich research knowledge that now exists in this area. Wield thinks that the key finding in 50 years of innovation studies has been the realisation that the “linear model”, by which discoveries in the laboratory are adopted for commercial use and turn into products for business, is a massive oversimplification and rarely happens in practice. Instead, he says, “Innovation can come from push or pull”, in other words via ideas for new and innovative technology, or from an awareness of possible demand.
“
Despite our growing awareness of the sheer complexity of economic systems, we may still be underestimating their ability to surprise us.
Innovation can come via ideas for
new and innovative technology, or from an awareness of possible demand At the same time, he adds, we now have a
growing awareness that “innovation can happen in networks as well as in firms.” Wield points to the example of global vaccine development. Here, he says, companies, governments, and non-profit bodies and NGOs such as the Gates Foundation, have found ways of working together effectively. But Donald MacKenzie, professor of sociology at the University of Edinburgh and formerly Research Associate at the ESRC Centre for Analysis
”
of Risk and Regulation (2000-2010) warns that despite our growing awareness of the sheer complexity of economic systems, we may still be underestimating their ability to surprise us. He says: “The discipline of economics needs things you can model, and it tests those models with quantitative data. But if you speak in a more anecdotal way to people involved in areas like high- frequency trading [the use of algorithms to trade over millisecond or even microsecond timescales], you find big unknowns. On the one hand, the main techniques are common knowledge in the industry. But different firms’ algorithms can interact with each other in unpredictable ways. The result could be that the probability of a systemic crisis is higher than examination of routine trading data would lead one to imagine.” n
Economic, business and innovation investments
n Centre for Competition Policy:
competitionpolicy.ac.uk n Centre for Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy:
www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/ research/centres/cage/
n Centre for Economic Performance:
cep.lse.ac.uk n Centre for Macroeconomics:
www.centreformacroeconomics.ac.uk
n Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity:
www.cusp.ac.uk (CUSP)
n Credit and Labour Market Foundations of the Macroeconomy:
www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/ economics/news/current-news/esrc-large-grant
n Enterprise Research Centre:
www.enterpriseresearch.ac.uk
n Institute for Fiscal Studies:
www.ifs.org.uk n Spatial Economics Research Centre:
www.spatialeconomics.ac.uk
n Systemic Risk Centre (SRC):
www.systemic
risk.ac.uk n Tax Administration Research Centre (TARC):
tarc.exeter.ac.uk
n UK-Innovation Research Centre:
www.uk-irc.org
By Martin Ince, principal of Martin Ince Communications. Martin is a freelance science writer and media trainer.
12 SOCIETY NOW SUMMER 2015
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