Innovation – Linking Science and Technology to Markets

The aim of this chapter is to describe, in generic terms, how science and technology competencies and skills are built and managed in industrial R&D laboratories. Such a description will hopefully provide a background to issues such as the factors a firm may take into consideration in the choice of areas and funding of fundamental scientific research. Second, what are some of the more common mechanisms and methodologies which are used by firms to build their technological capabilities derived from investment in basic research? And finally, how does an array of such technological capabilities fuel the innovation engine of a company? In very rare instances, a firm embarks on R&D de novo. As has been described in Chapter 3, many if not most of the new high-technology companies in the USA trace their origins to one or more scientific discoveries in a university department or a venture capital funded company or a combination of the two. What distinguishes these companies is that the products which they bring to the market clearly fulfil some defined or unfulfilled consumer or customer demand. In the more traditional and large companies investments in R&D usually have a longer history.