Laurent Miéville

Director of Technology Transfer & Past President

University of Geneva Association of European Science

Technology Transfer Professionals

Boost Innovation using Diversity:Insights from a top innovative country

Back End of Innovation Conference Boston, Oct 10th, 2012

and Creativity

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

Factor-DrivenEconomy

Investment-DrivenEconomy

Innovation-DrivenEconomy

Factor-DrivenEconomy

•Cheap labor / naturalressources

Investment-Driven Economy

•Start of University-Industry research collaboration

•Companies can absorb best available foreign technologies

Innovation-DrivenEconomy

•Supply of scientists and engineers

•Quality of research

•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

We are in an Innovation-Driven Economy

The Need for “smart” R&D

How companies approach innovation

McKinsley Quarterly, October 2007

Where to get new ideas?

Source Cash . June 14, 2007

In the past….

Now….

Problems are getting harder…..

Functions are becoming increasingly specialized

But

Most promising ideas lie at the intersections of disciplines

Collaboration is key

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.

Work Together or Fail Alone

• Debate in a group generates more

creativity

• Being exposed to different views

expands our creative potential

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).

Why diversity is so important ?

We reassess our initial assumptions and try out new perspectives

Promote cross-collaboration….

…..through researchers proximity

Research Collaborative Ctr

Rockefeller University

Regeneration Medicine Lab, UCSFInterdisciplinary Science Building

Columbia 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

How Switzerland uses proximity and

diversity to boost its innovation capacity

Swiss Innovation Rankings

0,755

0,724

0,700

0,691

0,621

0,620

0,603

0,596

0,595

0,595

0,582

Switzerland

Sweden

Denmark

Germany

Finland

Belgium

UK

Iceland

Netherlands

Austria

Luxembourg

Ireland

EU Summary Innovation Index

Source: European Innovation Scoreboard, 2011

100,0

97,8

96,7

95,9

91,4

90,3

90,0

89,7

89,3

88,5

87,2

86,1

Hong Kong

USA

Switzerland

Singapore

Sweden

Canada

Taiwan

Norway

Germany

Qatar

Netherlands

Luxembourg

World Competitiveness Scoreboard

Source: IMD,World Competitiveness Yearbook 2012

5,72

5,67

5,55

5,53

5,5

5,48

5,47

5,45

5,41

5,4

5,38

5,29

Switzerland

Singapore

Finland

Sweden

Netherlands

Germany

USA

UK

HongKong

Japan

Qatar

Denmark

Global Competitiveness Index

Source:Global Competitiveness report, 2012-2013

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011

Ra

nk

Year

IMD WEF

The Other Federer:

Technology Transfer Ranking Switzerland

0

50

100

150

200

250

2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008

Source: European Innovation Scoreboard, 2010

SwitzerlandIceland

Denmark

EU

Netherlands

Sweden

Finland Norway

Benchmarking Collaborative

Partnering

Evolution of public-

private co-publications

per million population

1300 B 21, first quartz calibre 1967

Seiko 35 SQ Astron, first quartz watch, 1969

Swiss Innovations

www.paccar.ethz.ch

Guinness World Record in fuel efficiency 20 km / g = 5’385 km / l = around the globe with 8 l gasoline

Shell eco-marathon record holder 3’836 km/l of gasoline (2005)

Swiss Innovations

Dense network of world class research

LGIS

Meet

Diversity attained through specific events

Creativity Center

Pre-seed Workshop

KTT Dialogs

Co-Develop

Entrepreneurship Week Startup Weekend

Stu

dents

Researc

he

rs

Co-Create

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 LakeGeneva region’s academic institutes and industry

www.lgis.ch

Dialogs on Knowledge and Technology Transfer

• Establish direct contacts and exchanges between stakeholders active onresearch on knowledge and technology transfer (KTT)

• Provide a better mutual understanding and insights on the complex KTTprocesses, their implication and role on academic research as well as theeconomy.

The Economics of KTT April 3rd- 4th, 2008, Geneva

Optimizing KTT pathways for unmet therapeutic needs Oct. 29th, 2009, Boston

www.ktt-dialogs.net

Geneva Creativity Center

www.creativitycenter.ch

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.

Pre-Seed Workshop

The Pre-Seed Workshop is a 2 ½ day “build-a-company” event which ralliescommunity talent and resources to

1) investigate the commercial potential of new technologies (developedprimarily at universities, corporations, and major research centers) and

2) transform the more promising candidates into pre-seed stagecompanies.

www.psw-ny.org

Nurturing Diversity:

Promoting entrepreneurship

in the School of Liberal Arts

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 ?

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

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 ?)

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

Conclusions

Working in partnership to support innovation

Association of European Science & Office of Technology TransferTechnology Transfer Professionals Unitec-University of GenevaKoninginnegracht 22 24, rue Général Dufour2514 AB the Hague 1211 Geneva 4www.astp.net www.unige.ch/unitecPh: +31 70 392 63 74 Ph: +41 22 379 03 50

Thank you