Applied Nanotechnology

CHAPTER 3 Innovation

Although the dictionary definition of “innovation” is simply “the bringing in of novelties”, it has in recent years become a more narrowly defined concept much beloved especially by government ministries and their agencies charged with animating economic activity in their countries. Indeed in 2007 the UK government, which has been in the van of this process, created a new Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills, revealingly linking innovation with universities. In this usage, innovation has come to mean specifically the process whereby new products are introduced into the commercial sphere: “The technical, designing, manufacturing, management and commercial activities involved in the marketing of a new (or improved) ...