Business Chemistry

5Principles of Research, Technology, and Innovation

Jens Leker¹, Thibaut Lenormant¹, and Gerald Kirchner²

¹ University of Münster, Department of Chemistry and Pharmacy

² ALTANA AG, Corporate Environment, Health, and Safety

Anything that won’t sell, I don’t want to invent. Its sale is proof of utility, and utility is success.

Thomas A. Edison (1847–1931), American inventor and businessman

In this chapter the key dimensions of innovation are explained, before sources of innovation are elucidated from a theoretical as well as from a functional perspective. How to structure innovation activities within a company will subsequently be explained, focusing on either a centralized or decentralized R&D department and the advantages of the open innovation approach discussed. In the last part of the chapter the Stage‐Gate^® model to manage the innovation process will be described in detail, providing practitioners with a tool for a structured approach to innovations.

5.1 What Is Innovation and Why Do You Need It?

On a certain evening in June 1878, Russian chemist Constantin Fahlberg suddenly realized that he missed dinnertime. He had been working all day at the Johns Hopkins University laboratory of Professor Ira Remsen, where he had begun his own research one year earlier. The coal tar derivatives with which he had been experimenting had occupied much of his attention and he didn’t notice how late it was. Thereupon, he rushed off for a meal. As he bit into a piece of bread, it tasted ...