Knowledge Production Modes between Science and Applications 2

23D, 4D and Bio-printing Innovations and Additive Manufacturing

Innovation can be made up of two partially interdependent parts, as we have shown:

• the generation of an idea transformed into an invention which is more technological, translated into a proof of concept (POC);
• the conversion of this invention into a profitable application via an industrial demonstrator (ID); this includes social characteristics (desirability, economics, transfer and training, dissemination, risks, liability, etc.).

Based on commercial success, technological innovation is proactively directed toward organization and the orientation of human and financial resources toward forms of efficiency. It then leads to:

• the need to create new knowledge to support incremental innovations; generation of technical ideas that complement or build on the founding concept created, to find or improve products, manufacturing and services (idea of incremental technological advances);
• the development of these increments (some of which are disruptive) in POC and then DI in the form of a functional prototype; their transfer to manufacturing, distribution and use;
• the emergence of a new disruptive concept.

In light of additive manufacturing processes (with which the author is quite familiar, at least in an academic context), this chapter looks at how this knowledge and the associated innovations relate to these considerations, in particular by taking into account the effects of the 12 “death valleys” defined in Volume ...