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Boost Innovation and Creativity using Diversity: Insights from a top innovative country
1. and Creativity
Boost Innovation using Diversity:
Insights from a top innovative country
Laurent Miéville
Director of Technology Transfer & Past President
University of Geneva Association of European Science
Technology Transfer Professionals
Back End of Innovation Conference Boston, Oct 10th, 2012
2. Plan of the Presentation
Why Innovation and Creativity matter
Proximity & Diversity as key drivers for creative collaboration
How Switzerland uses proximity and diversity to boost its
innovation capacity
Specific Examples
Discussion & lessons learned
Conclusion
3. We are in an Innovation-Driven Economy
Factor-Driven Investment-
Investment-Driven Innovation-Driven
Economy Driven Economy
Economy Economy
• Cheap labor / natural • Start of University-Industry • Supply of scientists and
ressources research collaboration engineers
• Companies can absorb best • Quality of research
available foreign technologies • University-Industry research
collaboration
• VCs
• Intense local competition
• Ability to innovate at world’s
technology frontiers
• Create unique product designs
• Sell products and services
globally
Source: Porter, M. 2002 Global Competitiveness Report, World Economic Forum, Geneva
8. Work Together or Fail Alone
Problems are getting harder…..
Functions are becoming increasingly specialized
But
Most promising ideas lie at the intersections of disciplines
Collaboration is key
9. Work Together or Fail Alone
19,9 million peer-reviewed academic papers & 2.1 million patents
over five decades:
• Level of teamwork has increased in >95% of scientific subfields
• Average team size has increased about 20% each decade
• Multiple authors receive >2x as many citations than individuals
• Top papers > 6x more likely to come from a team
Source: Wuchty, Stefan, Benjamin F Jones and Brian Uzzi. 2007.
The Increasing Dominance of Teams in the Production of Knowledge. Science. 316(5827): 1036-1039.
10. Why diversity is so important ?
• Debate in a group generates more
creativity
• Being exposed to different views
expands our creative potential
We reassess our initial assumptions and try out new perspectives
Source: Nemeth, C.J. and Nemeth-Brown, Better than Individuals? The potential benefits of dissent and diversity for group creativity
In P. Paulus and B. Nijstad (eds) Group Creativity. Oxford: Oxford University Press (2003).
11. Promote cross-collaboration….
…..through researchers proximity
Interdisciplinary Science Building Regeneration Medicine Lab, UCSF
Columbia University
Research Collaborative Ctr
Rockefeller University
See for example: Lee K, Brownstein JS, Mills RG, Kohane IS (2010) Does Collocation Inform the Impact of Collaboration?
PLoS ONE 5(12): e14279. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0014279
13. Swiss Innovation
Rankings
EU Summary Innovation Index Global Competitiveness Index World Competitiveness Scoreboard
Switzerland Switzerland 5,72 Hong Kong 100,0
Sweden 0,755 Singapore 5,67 USA 97,8
Denmark 0,724 Finland 5,55 Switzerland 96,7
Germany 0,700 Sweden 5,53 Singapore 95,9
Finland 0,691 Netherlands 5,5 Sweden 91,4
Belgium 0,621 Germany 5,48 Canada 90,3
UK 0,620 USA 5,47 Taiwan 90,0
Iceland 0,603 UK 5,45 Norway 89,7
Netherlands 0,596 HongKong 5,41 Germany 89,3
Austria 0,595 Japan 5,4 Qatar 88,5
Luxembourg 0,595 Qatar 5,38 Netherlands 87,2
Ireland 0,582 Denmark 5,29 Luxembourg 86,1
Source: European Innovation Scoreboard, 2011 Source:Global Competitiveness report, 2012-2013 Source: IMD,World Competitiveness Yearbook 2012
14. The Other Federer:
Year
1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011
1
2
3
IMD WEF
4
5
Rank
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
Technology Transfer Ranking Switzerland
15. Benchmarking Collaborative
Partnering
2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008
250
200
Switzerland
Iceland
150
Sweden
Denmark
100 Finland Norway Evolution of public-
Netherlands
private co-publications
50 per million population
EU
0
Source: European Innovation Scoreboard, 2010
16. Swiss Innovations
1300 B 21, first quartz calibre 1967
Seiko 35 SQ Astron, first quartz watch, 1969
17. Swiss Innovations
20 km / g = 5’385 km / l = around the globe with 8 l gasoline
Guinness World Record in fuel efficiency
Shell eco-marathon record holder 3’836 km/l of gasoline (2005)
www.paccar.ethz.ch
19. Diversity attained through specific events
Students
Entrepreneurship Week Startup Weekend
Pre-seed Workshop
Researchers
Creativity Center
KTT Dialogs
LGIS
Meet Co-Create Co-Develop
20. Lake Geneva Innovation Society
2008: Health and nutrition in the developing world
2010: Added value of Affective Sciences for the Economy and Society
2011: Current Perspectives on Ageing
2012: Smart and New Materials
• Based on the Oxford Innovation Society
• Promoting Innovation and excellence in public-private partnerships
• Power networking events assembling 60-100 leaders from the Lake
Geneva region’s academic institutes and industry
www.lgis.ch
21. Dialogs on Knowledge and Technology Transfer
The Economics of KTT April 3rd- 4th, 2008, Geneva
Optimizing KTT pathways for unmet therapeutic needs Oct. 29th, 2009, Boston
• Establish direct contacts and exchanges between stakeholders active on
research on knowledge and technology transfer (KTT)
• Provide a better mutual understanding and insights on the complex KTT
processes, their implication and role on academic research as well as the
economy.
www.ktt-dialogs.net
22. Geneva Creativity Center
The Geneva Creativity Center offers is a collaborative space to stimulate and
generate ideas.
Its objective is to provide an opportunity for researchers and industrial partners to
exchange and confront their needs, ideas or problems and share their respective
knowledge.
www.creativitycenter.ch
23. Pre-Seed Workshop
The Pre-Seed Workshop is a 2 ½ day “build-a-company” event which rallies
community talent and resources to
1) investigate the commercial potential of new technologies (developed
primarily at universities, corporations, and major research centers) and
2) transform the more promising candidates into pre-seed stage
companies.
www.psw-ny.org
25. Discussion
What are the main outcomes of such partnering experiments ?
What is the appropriate model for companies to support
creativity ?
Can we further enhance these models ?
26. Discussion
What are the main outcomes of such partnering experiments ?
What is the appropriate model for companies to enhance
creativity ?
There is no “one fits all” format.
As a general rule, the deeper the interaction, the smaller the
group size
Build trust through networking events before engaging in co-
creation or co-development
Carefully select and place guests
27. Discussion
Can we further enhance these models ?
Beyond face to face: testing online collaboration platforms
http://www.launchpadcentral.com
https://qlna.imaginatik.com (BEI platform)
http://www.atizo.com
Not yet there but there is potential (any positive experience ?)
28. Conclusions
In an innovation driven economy, smart ideas are key
Companies must nurture and support creativity using diversity
Switzerland is providing a very fertile ground for creativity
• Close Proximity of Universities and Companies
• Well trained and diverse workforce (4 national languages)
Swiss Universities have build upon such fertile grounds by
developing multiple opportunities for students, academic and
industry researchers to meet, create and develop innovations.
As consequence its innovative capacity is now one of the best
29. Working in partnership to support innovation
Thank you
Association of European Science & Office of Technology Transfer
Technology Transfer Professionals Unitec-University of Geneva
Koninginnegracht 22 24, rue Général Dufour
2514 AB the Hague 1211 Geneva 4
www.astp.net www.unige.ch/unitec
Ph: +31 70 392 63 74 Ph: +41 22 379 03 50
