Title page
Contents
Foreword 5
Acknowledgements 7
Executive summary 8
Introduction: What is the direction of innovation? 15
Chapter 1. Setting a course for the direction of innovation 19
1.1. Social and private returns 19
1.2. Interactions within innovation ecosystems 21
1.3. The economic forces at work 23
1.4. How can policy shape the direction of innovation? 28
1.5. Developing economies and the direction of innovation 31
1.6. The future direction of innovation 33
References 38
Chapter 2. What history tells us about the direction of innovation 43
2.1. Second World War 43
2.2. Space industry 48
2.3. Rise of IT in East Asian countries 53
2.4. Chapter summary and conclusions 57
References 59
Chapter 3. The direction of innovation: future challenges 62
3.1. The lessons of COVID-19 63
3.2. Addressing the climate change imperative 66
3.3. Digitalization is changing the world 74
3.4. Public policy can harness innovation to address the challenges 79
3.5. Conclusions and policy recommendations 81
References 85
Technical notes 91
Acronyms 97
Table 2.1. Top 10 universities with OSRD contracts by total value, 1941-1947 47
Table 2.2. Top universities and hospitals contracted for penicillin and malaria projects, 1941-1947 47
Figure 1.1. Estimated social and private benefit in USD billion 20
Figure 1.2. Conceptual summary of innovation stakeholders' interactions 22
Figure 1.3. Shares of scientific publications by scientific field, 1840-2019 24
Figure 1.4. Shares of patents by technological field, 1900-2020 25
Figure 1.5. Conceptual summary of the evolving innovation ecosystem around a new technology 26
Figure 1.6. Conceptual summary of general-purpose technologies cycles 28
Figure 2.1. Solar efficiency, in percentage, 1960-2020 50
Figure 2.2. NASA outlays and U.S. private investments on space, 2010-2019 51
Figure 2.3. Share of global electrical patenting, selected Asian countries, 1970-2018 56
Figure 3.1a. Share of funding for COVID-19 vaccines by type in percentage 63
Figure 3.1b. Funding for COVID-19 vaccines by type and region in USD billions 63
Figure 3.2. Share of public energy R&D investment spending by technology in percentage, 1974-2019 67
Figure 3.3a. Total patent filings in clean technologies by categories 69
Figure 3.3b. Climate-change mitigation technologies in energy by subcategories 69
Figure 3.4. Share of total U.S. energy consumption by major energy source 70
Figure 3.5a. Total patent filings in the car industry, by green (electric and hybrid), gray and dirty patents 71
Figure 3.5b. Share of patent filings of green (electric and hybrid), gray and dirty technologies as share of patent filings in the car industry 71
Figure 3.6a. Global electric vehicles market share 72
Figure 3.6b. Spending on electric vehicles purchases by origin of funds 72
Figure 3.7. Share of digital general-purpose technologies by category (left), and as a percentage of all patent filings (right) 75
Boxes
Box 1.1. Social versus private benefits of COVID-19 vaccine development 20
Box 2.1. Penicillin 44
Box 2.2. Antimalarial drugs 45
Box 2.3. Vaccines 46
Box 2.4. Blood substitutes 47
Box 2.5. Hormones 48
Box 2.6. Carbon fiber 49
Box 2.7. Energy storage 50
Box 2.8. Digital processing, computers and Artificial Intelligence (AI) 51
Box 3.1. Operation Warp Speed shortened vaccine development times 64
Box 3.2. Taskforce-facilitated clinical trials and vaccine manufacturing 65
Box 3.3. Inducement mechanisms and type of innovation 68
Box 3.4. Big tech firms: anti-trust concerns 78
Box 3.5. Selected government policies for building innovative digital capacities 80