GrowinG Future innovators - ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative ...

59 Slawsby & Rivera (2007:3)
60 Leadbeater (2009b)
61 Harris (2007), see also
NESTA (2007b), Miles &
Green (2008)
62 OECD (2005:29)
Figure 2: the ecology
of innovation
the sources of innovation: who drives the
development of innovation and where it
comes from can vary. Accordingly, terms
like research-led, market-led and userled
innovation have coined. And while
innovations can be the brain child of
individuals or specific teams—individual
innovation—it is also possible to have
collective innovation, which is based
on “connected, open, and collaborative
process” 59 . These can often be facilitated
by online platforms as described in Charles
Leadbeater’s We Think. 60
the visibility of innovation: innovation
which is not captured in official innovation
surveys and statistics has been described
as hidden innovation, as opposed to what
might be called reported innovation. As
Michael Harris from NESTA points out,
“despite not being measured, hidden
innovation often represents the innovation
that matters—the innovation that most
directly contributes to the real practice and
performance of a sector.” 61
Traditionally, mainstream innovation
researchers and policy-makers have focused
on innovations that are: radical; researchdriven;
new to the world; led by individuals
and small teams; involving technological
products and processes; and readily observed
and reported. But this is changing. As part
of the broadening creativity and innovation
agenda, researchers and policy makers have
DIFFUSION
GENERATION
innovation policies
and programs
innovation cycle
education system
cities / living
culture of innovation
also begun to examine innovation that is:
incremental; user-driven; local; social; hidden;
relating to organisational, marketing, servicebased
and other forms of low- and nontechnological
innovation.
So how do all these innovations come to be?
Scholars and policy-makers now think of
innovation as flourishing in a complex ecology
that encompasses a cycle, people, institutions,
and various supporting mechanisms (which is
represented visually in Figure 2).
Innovations move through a three-stage
cycle from their specific, generative
beginnings to their practical application and
wider diffusion, which can then stimulate
further innovation. This characterisation
of the innovation cycle has its origins in the
mid-twentieth-century economic theories of
Schumpeter 62 and while typically applied to
scientific knowledge and business enterprise,
it can also be applied to many if not all
disciplines and domains of innovation activity.
These three stages of innovation are:
generation—creating and producing new
knowledge, ideas, forms and processes
application—applying new knowledge,
ideas, forms and processes in practical
contexts for tangible benefits
diffusion—the spread of new knowledge
and applications until it is absorbed into
our way of life
APPLICATION
Growing future Innovators: a scoping study 17