Are you thinking of turning your research into a new product or enterprise? Have you identified a problem or an opportunity that you would like to find an impactful solution to? Then this blog following Visiting Fellow Sarah Haywood’s Dining with Dinosaur’s talk called ‘Innovation: a 4(+1) puzzle’ is for you. Sarah had a clear message for the audience: “Innovation does not happen by chance, there are a lots of things you can do to increase the likelihood for it to take place and to be successful”.
An essential part for innovation to thrive and succeed is an ‘innovation ecosystems’, with 4 essential puzzle pieces:
1: ‘Ideas’: The start of every innovation journey is a good idea. This idea could be for a new product or solution, but it could also be for a problem that needs disrupting. It is a myth that ‘patentability’ of any potential innovation makes or breaks an idea. Not every innovation generates a patent, but there are also other forms of protecting your innovation, like trademarking or design rights.
2: ‘Human Capital’: It doesn’t matter how good an idea is, successful innovations need talented people to turn it into a product and business. Universities create human capital for innovation and the University of Oxford is exemplary for people being excited to create innovation. However, there continues to be an issue with gender diversity in innovation, with only 2% of all Oxford spin-outs being led by an all female team.
3: ‘Money’: There different ways to raise money to turn your idea into a product and business, such as from angel or venture capital funders. The type of investment should suit a particular innovation. It is therefore important to have a plurality of investors as part of a thriving innovation ecosystem.
4: ‘Place’: Access to the right sort of facilities and physical spaces, be it labs or co-working opportunities, are key for a thriving innovation ecosystem. Places enable people to come together and ideas to thrive. Another aspect of ‘place’ is ‘soft infrastructure’ that includes access to networks, business support, advisors, mentoring and coaching, accelerators and incubators. Place ideally creates ‘stickiness’ for ideas and innovations to be able to take shape and grow.
This completes the puzzle of the ‘innovation ecosystem’. Reuben College, the University of Oxford and wider Oxfordshire have combined the puzzle pieces to create ecosystems for your innovations to take shape. For example, peers and fellows at the college can be sounding boards for new ideas, or potential co-founders and team members. Oxford University Innovation offers support to aspiring entrepreneurs. In the wider Oxfordshire area, examples such as ‘Health Innovation Oxford Thames Valley’ can help innovators to break into the notoriously NHS landscape with their new products.
So what is the “+1” to the 4 pieces of the innovation ecosystem puzzle? The right policy environment, with a commitment to support innovation to drive the economy. Thriving innovation ecosystems are mostly set within policy frameworks that allow these to happen. Sarah pointed out that UK policy is committed to doing its part for innovations to thrive.
