Radical innovation: crossing knowledge boundaries with ...

grants for interdisciplinary research related to the environment and health, rural
economy and land use and energy. And the Council for Science and Technology
report on the relationship between the arts and sciences states that the nature of the
knowledge economy renders “the concept of a distinct frontier between science and
the arts and humanities … anachronistic. Successful economies depend increasingly
on the creation, communication, understanding and use of ideas and images”(Council
for Science and Technology 2001:1). In these cases solutions to particular problems
that are visible in society today or anticipated for the future are perceived to lie in the
combination of knowledge from different sectors and disciplines.
The description of innovation as a relationship between research and market in the
policy literature is thus associated with the requirement for greater connectivity,
exchange and collaboration in research more generally. However, while government
policy reports frequently note the importance of collaborations and networking in
knowledge production, several reports commissioned by NESTA point out that
government measures of innovation often obscure precisely the kinds of innovation
that flourish in these contexts. The 2006 report on ‘The Innovation Gap’ and the 2007
report on ‘Hidden Innovation’ both argue that current ways of measuring innovation,
in terms of R & D spending or numbers of patents, fail to make visible forms of
innovation that are occurring in the UK economy through processes of networking
and collaboration (Harris and Halkett 2007, NESTA 2006). Much of the innovation
that occurs in the UK, they argue, involves drawing on and adapting ideas from
outside a firm rather than a single firm both developing entirely new ideas and taking
them to market. Furthermore innovation may not only take the form of technological
solutions, but also social and organizational transformations. These reports thus call
for a more detailed analysis of how innovation might occur in practice, and
recognition of multiple forms of innovation, in order to develop the policies that will
support and advance it.
Across the policy reports reviewed here, including both those published by
government agencies and NESTA, numerous forms of associations and collaborations
are presented under the banner of knowledge exchange or boundary crossing. These
are summarised below before we turn to the role of interdisciplinarity in this
conglomeration.
12.2.3 Different models of knowledge exchange described in policy literature
Interdisciplinarity gains its contemporary specificity within policy discourse as part of
a bundle of terms relating to collaboration and networking, all of which stand for
increased connectivity between research and the market. However, what is notable
across the literature so far reviewed is that while much emphasis is laid on innovation
and the importance of networking in general, there is little description of how these
different kinds of networking might differ from one another, and what
interdisciplinary research might consist of in practice beyond the abstract notion of
social consultation. Furthermore, by calling on the social sciences and arts as
spokespersons for society, policy discourse on science and society risks assigning
Innovation and Interdisciplinarity 102