Innovations not aimed at making money: how they emerge, and how can be useful to the economy?
Professor Jonathan Linton, head of the HSE ISSEK Laboratory for Economics of Innovation, and Konstantin Fursov, senior researcher at the laboratory, analysed emergence and dissemination of innovations in various economic conditions. Results of their joint study were presented by Konstantin at the XV International Open and User Innovation Conference at the Innsbruck University (Austria)
The laboratory conducts ongoing monitoring study of innovation behaviour of the population, which allowed to collect data to make preliminary estimates of dissemination of “household innovations” in Russia, and “weigh” the positions of domestic inventors in the structure of the Russian society.
Having compared the results with data for other countries (US, UK, Japan, Finland, Sweden, etc.), and analysed the motives for generating new ideas and solutions, the researchers suggested that lack of market mechanisms doesn’t necessarily slows down their subsequent dissemination. If that is indeed the case, developing economies and regions usually not inclined towards innovation (e.g. Central African countries) should also have examples of successfully implemented user innovations. This was the thesis our colleagues tried to elaborate in their study “Innovations not aimed at making money: how they emerge, and how can be useful to the economy?”
The presentation asked what kind of incentives, apart from purely commercial ones, motivate innovators, and what should be kept in mind if the objective is to promote mass marketing of new user-produced products. The conceptual model presented at the conference implied that in addition to motivation, two other things must be present: infrastructure sufficient for making prototypes of future products, and enabling technologies which could make possible applying the innovations.
To give an example, the researchers analysed the case of designing a system for checking authenticity of medicines (SPROXIL) in Nigeria, a country with very low level of social trust. It became possible due to proliferation of mobile communications, and mobile operators’ willingness to support, jointly with the Ministry of Health, a database of officially procured medicines. Now any consumer can send a text message with the unique identifier on the medicine’s pack and immediately receive a confirmation of the drug’s authenticity. This solution allowed significantly reduce mortality rate in the country.
There are other examples, some of which show that professional and amateur societies with an interest in solving common problems can act as conduits of innovation. A classic example is development and application of open source software, which allows users with certain programming skills adapt various computer solutions to match their specific needs. Another presentation at the conference described a case study of the R programming environment actively applied for data analysis. Community support, and willingness to share code allow not only to optimise the search for required algorithms and save time for, e.g. initial data processing, but jointly solve more complex problems.
Currently available high-speed communications and numerous technologies enable a very wide range of users to get involved in creating innovations. According to Fursov and Linton, the key issue for developing and “regulated” economies remains the state’s and companies’ willingness to promote such joint initiatives, which have a potential of meeting the challenges the society is currently facing.
The full presentation is available here
By Konstantin Fursov
Photos from Facebook HYVE
See also: