Organized Innovation

A Blueprint for Renewing America's Prosperity

Steven C. Currall, Ed Frauenheim, Sara Jansen Perry, and Emily M. Hunter

The framework puts forth a systematic method for leading the translation of scientific discoveries into societal benefits through commercialization by organizing the conditions for technology breakthroughs that lead to new products, companies, and world-leading industries.
Universities, government, and businesses can use this framework for generating fundamentally fresh insights, developing those concepts, turning them into tangible products, and bringing those products to market to the benefit of society.
The authors tell the story of the Engineering Research Center (ERC) program, which has seldom been publicized, through our quantitative research data as well as through extensive interviews with ERC leaders and people in a variety of positions within ERCs.
Organized Innovation framework can serve as the genesis of a new national innovation policy that bases research funding programs on Organized Innovation principles.
The key advantage of the Organized Innovation principles is that they can maximize the public's return on research and development investments.

Organized Innovation

A Blueprint for Renewing America's Prosperity

Steven C. Currall, Ed Frauenheim, Sara Jansen Perry, and Emily M. Hunter

Description

An innovation gap has emerged as American universities have focused on basic research and industry has concentrated on incremental product development. This gap has widened in recent decades, and the country has failed to close the gap in large part because of three myths-that innovation is about lone geniuses, the free market, and serendipity.

It is time to embrace a new solution. In Organized Innovation: How Universities Can Join Forces with Business and Government to Renew America's Prosperity, Currall, Frauenheim, Perry, and Hunter provide a framework for optimizing the way America creates, develops, and commercializes technology breakthroughs. A blueprint for leaders in universities, business, and government, Organized Innovation addresses the innovation gap before us, builds upon the collaborative, brokered way that innovation happens best, and explains how these new discoveries can be most effectively put into practice today to the benefit of both our country and the world.

The Organized Innovation framework is grounded in the authors' nearly decade-long study of lessons from a little-known but highly successful federal research program. Over the past quarter-century, the Engineering Research Center program has returned to the U.S. economy 10 times the funding invested in it. Detailed cases from the ERCs are used to bring to life the elements of the Organized Innovation framework.

Organized Innovation

A Blueprint for Renewing America's Prosperity

Steven C. Currall, Ed Frauenheim, Sara Jansen Perry, and Emily M. Hunter

Preface: Restoring Our "Vision "
The Problem
Chapter 1: The Innovation Imperative
Chapter 2: Unorganized Innovation
Chapter 3: The Myths behind Unorganized Innovation
The Solution
Chapter 4: The Organized Innovation Framework
Chapter 5: Channeled Curiosity
Chapter 6: Boundary-Breaking Collaboration
Chapter 7: Orchestrated Commercialization
The Prescription
Chapter 8: Organizing Our Innovation Ecosystem
Chapter 9: Seeing Is Believing
Appendix A: History and Impact of Engineering Research Centers Program
Appendix B: Research Methodology
Appendix C: Research Questions for Future Scholarly Examinations of Organized Innovation
Bibliography

Organized Innovation

A Blueprint for Renewing America's Prosperity

Steven C. Currall, Ed Frauenheim, Sara Jansen Perry, and Emily M. Hunter

Author Information

Steven C. Currall, Professor of Management, Graduate School of Management, University of California, Davis, Ed Frauenheim, Senior Editor, Workforce Management magazine, a Crain Communications publication, Sara Jansen Perry, Assistant Professor of Management, Department of Management, Marketing, & Business, College of Business, University of Houston-Downtown, and Emily M. Hunter, Assistant Professor, Department of Management and Entrepreneurship, Hankamer School of Business, Baylor University

Steve Currall is Professor of Management in the Graduate School of Management at University of California, Davis. Edward Frauenheim is Senior Editor of Workforce Management magazine, a Crain Communications publication. Sara Jansen Perry is Assistant Professor of Management in the Department of Management, Marketing, & Business of the College of Business at University of Houston-Downtown. Emily Hunter is Assistant Professor in the Department of Management and Entrepreneurship of the Hankamer School of Business at Baylor University.

Organized Innovation

A Blueprint for Renewing America's Prosperity

Steven C. Currall, Ed Frauenheim, Sara Jansen Perry, and Emily M. Hunter

Reviews and Awards

"The authors' model of 'Organized Innovation' is based on the remarkable success of the National Science Foundation's Engineering Research Centers. This book offers a recipe for reversing worrisome trends in America's leadership in science and technology and the competitiveness of its industries through enhanced partnerships among universities, industry, and federal agencies. At a time when federal budgets are severely constrained, it is all the more important to insure those resources are well spent." - Neal Lane, physicist, former U.S. Presidential Science Adviser, former National Science Foundation director, and the Malcolm Gillis University Professor, Rice University

Organized Innovation

A Blueprint for Renewing America's Prosperity

Steven C. Currall, Ed Frauenheim, Sara Jansen Perry, and Emily M. Hunter

From Our Blog

Restoring our innovation 'vision'

What are the optimal conditions for commercializing technology breakthroughs? How can we develop a common framework among universities, government, and businesses for generating fundamentally fresh insights? How can the government maximize the public's return on research and development investments? Innovation is a important topic in both the public and the private sectors, yet no one can agree the best path forward for it.

Posted on May 22, 2014

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Why America must organize innovation

'Organized' and 'innovation' are words rarely heard together. But an organized approach to innovation is precisely what America needs today, argue Steve Currall, Ed Frauenheim, Sara Jansen Perry, and Emily Hunter. We sat down with the authors of Organized Innovation: A Blueprint for Renewing America's Prosperity to discuss why American ought to organize its innovation efforts.

Posted on March 4, 2014

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