Research Spotlight
Welcome to our Research Spotlight pages - a series of interviews and features on our work, told from the perspective of our researchers. These will give you an insight into the value of innovation to the UK economy and how the UK~IRC is contributing to development of policy and practice.
We speak to the events team about the forthcoming Innovation Summit held in November 2011.
Q. What is the theme of this year’s Innovation Summit?
The Innovation Summit is our annual one day conference for practitioners, policy-makers and academic and a chance to debate ‘hot-topics’ in innovation to share best practice. This year's event, entitled Growing Through Innovation, engages directly with our industrial partners to unite the latest academic research with real-world business concerns, leading to evidence-driven discussions on using innovation to sustain growth.
Q. Why is industrial engagement important to the UK~IRC?
As R&D investment in the private sector is coming under increasing pressure, we can provide a forum for organisations to discuss various methods of managing their innovation processes to ensure continued growth. Part of this discussion will be how R&D budgets can be used more strategically to prepare organisations to seize opportunities, as well realising the possibility of open innovation, implementing platforms and ecosystems strategies.
For our research in these areas to be truly relevant, engagement with real organisations is crucial to understand their experiences and needs. As our speakers are drawn from a variety of international firms including IBM, Boeing, Microsoft, Nokia, GSK, Pfizer, and Vestas, the Summit is an opportunity for research and industry to delve into these issue, foster cross-boundary links and maximise exchange of knowledge and learning.
Q. Will this Summit engage with academic and policy audiences?
Yes. The UK~IRC has a remit to develop means for all members of the innovation community to interact and learn from each other. Whilst a large portion of the audience will be from industry this year, the UK~IRC will also present its own research in the sessions, whilst researchers and policy-makers (including our funders) will be able to contribute to discussions and networking sessions throughout the day.
Q. What will the Summit achieve?
Primarily, our Summit series is designed to create a dialogue between people working on innovation topics and offers a chance for those in one area to forge links with others. The UK~IRC has a mission to advance knowledge through high quality research, and running such conferences allows our work to maximise its mutually beneficial effect impact on policy and practice.
To find out more about this year's Summit, please visit the event page.
The UK~IRC would like to thank IBM for generously supporting this year’s event.