"Changes in Innovation Ecology"

Read the editorial by William A. Wulf (president of the National Academy of Engineering) in Science, 1 June 2007. (Subscription required.)

Wulf defined "innovation ecology" as the environment created by the system of "interrelated institutions, laws, regulations, and policies providing an innovation infrastructure that entails education, research, tax policy, and intellectual property protection, among others." He perceives that "this ecology is more fundamentally broken than is generally recognized."

The nature of the ecology that most encourages and enhances an innovation depends on the characteristics of that innovation. Patent policies are quite different in the pharmaceutical than in the software industry. Indeed, some areas of software seem to do best under open source domains while others benefit from patent protection. Wulf makes the great point that the innovation ecology does not evolve as fast as the most important new technologies. (Does this mean that the United States which has a complex innovation ecology created to enhance previous technological revolutions may be ill equipped to deal with the revolutions that are arriving in fields like neurobiology and cognitive science. Wulf suggests that is the case.)

I think the area of pharmaceutical technology, in which Wulf identifies the FDA approval process for specific attention, may be an example. If the National Security Agency can monitor all the phone calls across the borders of the United States to save a few thousand lives a year from terrorist attacks, the FDA should be able to monitor all drug related illness and mortality to avert those pharmaceutical related problems.

I suggest that interested readers review the editorial. I would add to his list the need for better innovation ecologies in terms of governmental services (federal, state and local) and the services provided by intergovernmental agencies to the world population.