Foresight has emerged as a key instrument for the development and implementation of research and innovation policy. The main focus of activity has been at the national level. Governments have sought to set priorities, to build networks between science and industry and, in some cases, to change their research system and administrative culture. Foresight has been used as a set of technical tools, or as a way to encourage more structured debate with wider participation leading to the shared understanding of long-term issues. In this comprehensive and critical Handbook, cross-cutting analytical chapters explore the emergence and positioning of foresight, common approaches and methods, organisational issues, and the scope for policy transfer and evaluation. Leading experts and practitioners contribute chapters analysing experiences in France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the USA, Japan, China, Latin America, small European nations, Nordic countries and selected developing countries. The book concludes with consideration of the future of foresight itself. This fascinating Handbook will appeal equally to those wishing to apply foresight to their policy or strategy-making activities, and to those studying the theory and practice of foresight. The Handbook will be vital reading for policymakers considering, commissioning, or using foresight, companies eager to use public foresight, as well as academics and researchers in foresight, futures and STI policy and management communities.

This major textbook provides a comprehensive yet accessible introduction to the economics of innovation, written for students with some basic knowledge of economics. G.M. Peter Swann contends that innovation is one of the most important economic and business phenomena of our time and a topic of great practical and policy interest, with widespread implications for our economy and society. This book engages with the reader to explore some of the key economic issues concerning innovation. Bridging a gap in the literature, this timely textbook addresses critical questions such as: How should different aspects of innovation be described and classified? What are the incentives to innovate? How should firms organize themselves to promote innovation? What are the effects of innovation on the economy? Do governments have a role in supporting and guiding innovation? Introducing the student to a broad range of issues surrounding the economics of innovation, this text will prove invaluable to students on a variety of courses including economics, business and management, innovation, and science and technology studies.

The emergence of platforms is a novel phenomenon impacting most industries, from products to services. Industry platforms such as Microsoft Windows or Google, embedded within industrial ecosystems, have redesigned our industrial landscapes, upset the balance of power between firms, fostered innovation and raised new questions on competition and innovation. Annabelle Gawer presents cutting-edge contributions from 24 top international scholars from 19 universities across Europe, the USA and Asia, from the disciplines of strategy, economics, innovation, organization studies and knowledge management. The novel insights assembled in this volume constitute a fundamental step towards an empirically based, nuanced understanding of the nature of platforms and the implications they hold for the evolution of industrial innovation. The book provides an overview of platforms and discusses governance, management, design and knowledge issues. With a multidisciplinary approach, this book will strongly appeal to academics and advanced students in management, innovation, strategy, economics and design. It will also prove an enlightening read for business managers in IT industries.

This comprehensive handbook explores the interactions between the practice, policy, and theory of innovation. The goal is twofold: to increase insight into this dynamic process, searching for options to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of both policy and innovative practice, and to identify conceptual or empirical lacunae and questions that can guide future research. The handbook is a joint project from 24 prominent scholars in the field, and although each chapter reveals the insights of its respective authors, two overarching theoretical perspectives provide unique coherence and consistency throughout. This original reference work will not only provide valuable insights for scholars and students on innovation studies, but also to policymakers and practitioners. Contributors: A. Bergek, K. Blind, P. Boekholt, B. Carlsson, C. Chaminade, S.E. Cozzens, B. Dankbaar, P. den Hertog, J. Edler, C. Edquist, L. Elg, S.J.H. Graham, D.H. Guston, M. Hekkert, S. Jacobsson, S. Kuhlmann, B.R. Martin, J. Molas-Gallart, D. Sarewitz, P. Shapira, K. Smith, R. Smits, M. Teubal, R. van Merkerk, G. Vissers

Advances in Applied Mechanics draws together recent, significant advances in various topics in applied mechanics. Published since 1948, the book aims to provide authoritative review articles on topics in the mechanical sciences. The book will be of great interest to scientists and engineers working in the various branches of mechanics, but will also be beneficial to professionals who use the results of investigations in mechanics in various applications, such as aerospace, chemical, civil, environmental, mechanical, and nuclear engineering.

Cooperative networks have gained a tremendous amount of attention over the last several years because of their existence not only in biological, social and economic arenas, but because of direct applications in many more areas such as communications, robotics and military sciences. This volume reflects a cross-fertilization of ideas from a broad set of disciplines and creativity from a diverse array of scientific and engineering research.While the benefits of networks in general have been recognized for quite some time, the idea of cooperative networks has several novel implications. Because distributed processing by heterogeneous nodes promises significant increases in system capability, performance and efficiency, research has intensified with a breadth of promising applications. Topics in this volume include networks of unmanned vehicles in uncertain environments, networks subject to eavesdropping and jamming, optimal node task-allocation, network complexity analysis, cooperative search involving multiple unmanned vehicles, and cooperative communications in ad-hoc networks, optimal control and optimization in man-in-the-loop scenarios. A broad array of readers, including faculty, graduate students and researchers interested in optimization, computer science, engineering, the social and behavioral sciences and related applications in cooperative systems will find this volume of great value.

This volume, number 91 in the Semiconductor and Semimetals series, focuses on defects in semiconductors. Defects in semiconductors help to explain several phenomena, from diffusion to getter, and to draw theories on materials' behavior in response to electrical or mechanical fields. The volume includes chapters focusing specifically on electron and proton irradiation of silicon, point defects in zinc oxide and gallium nitride, ion implantation defects and shallow junctions in silicon and germanium, and much more. It will help support students and scientists in their experimental and theoretical paths.

Desulphurization and Denitrification of Diesel Oil using Ionic Liquids: Experiments and Quantum Chemical Predictions discusses how quantum chemical calculations are applied to investigate the fundamental nature of the IL-sulphur-nitrogen systems at atomic and molecular levels. The book will help readers understand the nature of the structural relationship between molecules such as ionic liquid + aromatic sulphur + aromatic nitrogen system(s). In addition, COSMO-RS (Conductor Like Screening Model for Real Solvents) predictions and subsequent experimentation are discussed to evaluate the performance of ionic liquids for desulphurization and denitrification of diesel oil.

In today's competitive environments, only the most creative and innovative organizations are able to survive. Indeed, instead of reacting to the market challenges, creative and innovative organizations act in a proactive way, establishing and developing strategies able to leverage, continuously, their creativity and their innovative abilities to attain long term success and competitiveness. Whether in the profit or non-profit sectors, or in the public or private sector, this book is designed to improve the knowledge, abilities, skills, and effectiveness, of all those that in their daily life are involved in creativity and innovative management and engineering. This book is an essential resource for academics, researchers, human resources managers, managers, engineers, and other professionals in related matters with creative and innovative management and engineering. This book introduces new lines of research about creativity and innovation in management and engineering areas. The models, theories and tools presented and discussed within enlighten management to take a more creative, innovative and strategic role in organizations. In the business world, there is a growing importance of sophisticated analysis for managers to support decision making, to use strategic information and creative and innovative tools in order to guide thinking and behavior as well as to manage more strategically to adapt to competitive environments and improve business performance and growth.

As businesses aim to compete internationally, they must be apprised of new methods and technologies to improve their digital marketing strategy in order to remain ahead of their competition. Trends in entrepreneurship that drive consumer engagement and business initiatives, such as social media marketing, yields customer retention and positive feedback. Advanced Methodologies and Technologies in Digital Marketing and Entrepreneurship provides information on emerging trends in business innovation, entrepreneurship, and marketing strategies. While highlighting challenges such as successful social media interactions and consumer engagement, this book explores valuable information within various business environments and industries such as e-commerce, small and medium enterprises, hospitality and tourism management, and customer relationship management. This book is an ideal source for students, marketers, social media marketers, business managers, public relations professionals, promotional coordinators, economists, hospitality industry professionals, entrepreneurs, and researchers looking for relevant information on new methods in digital marketing and entrepreneurship.

What causes one system to break down and another to rebound? Are we merely subject to the whim of forces beyond our control? Or, in the face of constant disruption, can we build better shock absorbers--for ourselves, our communities, our economies, and for the planet as a whole?
Reporting firsthand from the coral reefs of Palau to the back streets of Palestine, Andrew Zolli and Ann Marie Healy relate breakthrough scientific discoveries, pioneering social and ecological innovations, and important new approaches to constructing a more resilient world. Zolli and Healy show how this new concept of resilience is a powerful lens through which we can assess major issues afresh: from business planning to social develop-ment, from urban planning to national energy security--circumstances that affect us all.
Provocative, optimistic, and eye-opening, Resilience sheds light on why some systems, people, and communities fall apart in the face of disruption and, ultimately, how they can learn to bounce back.

The convergence of technology-based competitive capabilities among the world's economies has drastically altered the required economic growth strategies in industrialized nations. Based on a variety of corporate and government investment trend data and comparisons among national growth strategies, Gregory Tassey examines how this convergence has created an imperative for new growth models and strategies. In particular, he analyzes the major policy mechanisms for stimulating R&D investment and improving R&D efficiency over technology life cycles, detailing the needed changes. In the 65 years since Joseph Schumpeter's classic characterization of the 'creative destruction' process of industrial technological change, the role of technology in economic growth has grown relentlessly. The author provides the first detailed assessment of underinvestment in R&D and the two major R&D policy response mechanisms - tax policy and direct funding. The policy models and analyses presented are based largely on US economic experience, but the resulting prescriptions are relevant for all existing and emerging technology-based economies. The author's ultimate message is that the industry-centric Schumpeterian model must be expanded to one in which competition among governments is as important as it is within the private sector. This cutting-edge study will be of interest to science and technology policy researchers and analysts, economists focusing on the impacts of technological change, government managers of science and technology programs, and industry managers from high-tech firms.

The Asia Pacific has emerged as one of the most dynamic regions in the world, presenting a variety of social and economic experiences and responses to global pressures. In this book twelve country case studies explore the ways in which national science, technology and innovation policies are evolving in response to globalization. The editors argue that the national innovation system (NIS) perspective is driving policy regimes toward new approaches in policy intervention. Underlying the new policy agenda is a concern with reframing the role for science, technology and innovation institutions including higher education and integrating local community, national and global technology objectives. Presenting a broad analysis, the book will be of great interest to policy analysts and practitioners concerned with science, technology and innovation policy. It will also appeal to academic and postgraduate students concerned with innovation and industrial development, as well as scholars and practitioners engaged in regional development and international business in the Asia pacific region.

This unique study investigates the path of innovation in the electrical, electronics and communications engineering industries. It presents a holistic, multi-disciplinary analysis of innovation based on case studies of paradigm-changing inventions - spanning two hundred years - which altered the course of the global economy. The stimuli and constraints which control the dynamics of these innovations are pin-pointed in this book and applied to emerging technologies. Roger Cullis tests the analysis using a recent technology which underpins the embryonic information-based economy. He demonstrates that it is possible to use the hierarchical and time dependent nature of the stimuli and constraints he has identified to predict the likely success of a new technological invention. Considering the impact of all factors which contribute to the success of innovations, this unique book will be of great interest to inventors, patent attorneys and intellectual property practitioners and academics. It will also interest licensing executives and venture capitalists, innovation economists and government policymakers.

This book is a valuable insight into the life and work of Joseph A. Schumpeter. Bringing together an extensive collection of his essays, Arnold Heertje provides an overview of Schumpeter's life, his work and methodological approach. Schumpeter's vision of the role of the state and the capitalist system is thoroughly analysed by the author, who goes on to track the changing interpretation of Schumpeter's grand vision on the capitalist system through time. He also examines Schumpeter's ideas on technical change, innovation and economic growth and discusses neo-Schumpeterians and economic theory. Schumpeter on the Economics of Innovation and the Development of Capitalism will appeal to academics, students and scholars interested in an in-depth study of the great economist.

The concise and accessible chapters of "Nanomagnetism and Spintronics, Second Edition," cover the most recent research in areas of spin-current generation, spin-calorimetric effect, voltage effects on magnetic properties, spin-injection phenomena, giant magnetoresistance (GMR), and tunnel magnetoresistance (TMR).

Spintronics is a cutting-edge area in the field of magnetism that studies the interplay of magnetism and transport phenomena, demonstrating how electrons not only have charge but also spin. This second edition provides the background to understand this novel physical phenomenon and focuses on the most recent developments and research relating to spintronics.

This exciting new edition is an essential resource for graduate students, researchers, and professionals in industry who want to understand the concepts of spintronics, and keep up with recent research, all in one volume.
Provides a concise, thorough evaluation of current researchSurveys the important findings up to 2012 Examines the future of devices and the importance of spin current

This book investigates the antecedents and consequences of information technology adoption among small and medium sized enterprises.Following the well publicized 'Internet bubble', the rate of adoption of such technologies - especially of Internet-based solutions - has slowly changed among small firms, leading to a very mixed picture. Whilst a significant number of these small firms are still excluded from such technologies, others show very complex patterns of adoption and implementation. What is the reason for these differences, and do they explain performance heterogeneity among small firms? Andrea Ordanini addresses these questions by formulating various models of information technology adoption and its impact on marketing and procurement processes. The models are then tested on a sample of 700 small organizations. Their results provide various implications for managers and present suggestions for policy makers wishing to improve the effective use of information technologies within small firms. This book will strongly appeal to researchers, academics and students with an interest in business and management, entrepreneurship, technology and innovation. Entrepreneurs, managers, consultants and policy institutions interested in promoting technology diffusion among SMEs will also find the book to be of great interest.

New ventures have played a significant role in the world's economic and social development. In particular, the development of high technology ventures has been viewed as both a revitalization tool for developed market economies, such as the USA, and a driving force for economic transformation in transition economies, such as China. With a focus on new technology ventures in China's emerging market, this volume brings together researchers from a variety of disciplines and countries to provide a comprehensive understanding of this phenomenon. New technology ventures are highly vulnerable to environmental selection because they lack adequate knowledge of their environments, new product experience, and managerial and financial resources. Thus, these ventures tend to have high failure rates. Not surprisingly, a major stream of research in strategic management and entrepreneurship literature has focused on identifying the strategies that new technology ventures use to offset their liability of newness in order to improve their performance. However, previous studies have been done in the context of developed markets. This volume explores how new ventures successfully grow in China's transition economy where strategic factor markets and institutional frameworks have not been developed in this context. Significant issues addressed in this volume include: * Factors contributing to the growth of technology entrepreneurship in China * Ownership and survival of technology ventures in China * Challenges faced by venture capitalists in China * Growth strategies and environment-strategy interaction in Chinese technology ventures * Organizational control and reward and technology innovation in Chinese technology ventures * Political risks of foreign ventures in China's emerging market * R&D globalization and internationalization strategy of Chinese technology ventures. The contributors' conclusions will be highly valuable to managers of new technology ventures and to Western firms attempting to enter the high technology industries in China. Researchers interested in new technology ventures and innovation will also find this volume a useful addition to their libraries.

Public sector entrepreneurship refers to innovative public policy initiatives that generate greater economic prosperity. These initiatives can transform a status quo economic environment into one that is more conducive to economic units engaging in creative and innovative activities in the face of uncertainty. Public Sector Entrepreneurship traces the historical development of the concepts of private and public sector entrepreneurship and their connection to the separate notions of risk and uncertainty. Based on a formal conceptualization of these notions, the book illustrates throughout public sector entrepreneurship in practice using examples from U.S. technology and innovation policy. Technology policy-policy to enhance the application of new knowledge, learned through science, to some known problem-and innovation policy-policy to enhance the commercialization of a technology-are quintessential examples of the public sector recognizing and exploiting opportunities to bring about change and efficiency. Using this concept of public sector entrepreneurship as the lens to view the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980, the Stevenson-Wydler Act of 1980, the R&E Tax Credit of 1981, Small Business Innovation Development Act of 1982, the National Cooperative Research Act of 1984, and the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988 affords us the ability to find elements of commonality among these policies and to discuss their impact on the U.S. economy from the perspective of entrepreneurial action.

This book provides an overview of the emerging smart connected world, and discusses the roles and the usage of underlying semantic computing and Internet-of-Things (IoT) technologies. The book comprises ten chapters overall, grouped in two parts. Part I "Smart Connected World: Overview and Technologies" consists of seven chapters and provides a holistic overview of the smart connected world and its supporting tools and technologies. Part II "Applications and Case Studies" consists of three chapters that describe applications and case studies in manufacturing, smart cities, health, and more. Each chapter is self-contained and can be read independently; taken together, readers get a bigger picture of the technological and application landscape of the smart connected world. This book is of interest for researchers, lecturers, and practitioners in Semantic Web, IoT and related fields. It can serve as a reference for instructors and students taking courses in hybrid computing getting abreast of cutting edge and future directions of a connected ecosystem. It will also benefit industry professionals like software engineers or data scientists, by providing a synergy between Web technologies and applications. This book covers the most important topics on the emerging field of the smart connected world. The contributions from leading active researchers and practitioners in the field are thought provoking and can help in learning and further research. The book is a valuable resource that will benefit academics and industry. It will lead to further research and advancement of the field. Bharat K. Bhargava, Professor of Computer Science, Purdue University, United States

In Interop , technology experts John Palfrey and Urs Gasser explore the immense importance of interoperability,the standardization and integration of technology,and show how this simple principle will hold the key to our success in the coming decades and beyond. The practice of standardization has been facilitating innovation and economic growth for centuries. The standardization of the railroad gauge revolutionized the flow of commodities, the standardization of money revolutionized debt markets and simplified trade, and the standardization of credit networks has allowed for the purchase of goods using money deposited in a bank half a world away. These advancements did not eradicate the different systems they affected instead, each system has been transformed so that it can interoperate with systems all over the world, while still preserving local diversity. As Palfrey and Gasser show, interoperability is a critical aspect of any successful system,and now it is more important than ever. Today we are confronted with challenges that affect us on a global scale: the financial crisis, the quest for sustainable energy, and the need to reform health care systems and improve global disaster response systems. The successful flow of information across systems is crucial if we are to solve these problems, but we must also learn to manage the vast degree of interconnection inherent in each system involved. Interoperability offers a number of solutions to these global challenges, but Palfrey and Gasser also consider its potential negative effects, especially with respect to privacy, security, and co-dependence of states indeed, interoperability has already sparked debates about document data formats, digital music, and how to create successful yet safe cloud computing. Interop demonstrates that, in order to get the most out of interoperability while minimizing its risks, we will need to fundamentally revisit our understanding of how it works, and how it can allow for improvements in each of its constituent parts. In Interop , Palfrey and Gasser argue that there needs to be a nuanced, stable theory of interoperability,one that still generates efficiencies, but which also ensures a sustainable mode of interconnection. Pointing the way forward for the new information economy, Interop provides valuable insights into how technological integration and innovation can flourish in the twenty-first century.

This book is the result of years of research following a realization of the mismatch of engineering skills produced by universities and those that industry required, based on the situation in Sub-Saharan Africa, equally applicable to other regions in Africa and indeed worldwide. The book is meant to assist engineering academics and engineers in industry to build capacity and cope with the dynamic trends in technology brought on by the 4th Industrial Revolution and to prepare for the 5th Industrial Revolution, an era predicted to be dominated by critical and system thinkers with creative and innovative skills as basic necessities. The book is also useful for policy-making researchers in academia, industrial and public sector researchers, and implementers in governments that provide required funding for the development of human resources and skills. The book primarily consists of the novel research and innovation approaches of modelling and building systems thinking sub-models which were ultimately integrated into the Universal Systems Thinking (UST) model aimed at improving the quality of engineers and engineering practice. The initiatives in this book include strategies for bridging the gap between industry and academia through systems thinking research. The book provides information on how to model, simulate, adjust and implement integrated systems thinking approaches to engineering education and training for capacity building and sustainability. The book also covers approaches to address research gaps and mismatch of skills while capitalizing on the successes of several projects carried out and supported by the Royal Academy of Engineering over the years.

This book suggests that the scope and breadth of regulatory reforms since the mid-1980s and particularly during the 1990s, are so striking that they necessitate a reappraisal of current approaches to the study of the politics of regulation. The authors call for the adoption of different and fresh perspectives to examine this area. The contributors to this volume analyse how regulatory regimes that were once peculiar to the US and a few industries have, in recent years, come to define the best practice of governance over the world capitalist economy and over numerous social and economic sectors. They go on to suggest various explanations for the expansion of regulatory institutions, addressing some of the most critical problems and offering new methodological techniques to enable further study. The contributions also provide distinct cross-national and cross-sectoral comparative approaches, and emphasise the changes in the economic and social context of regulation and the implications of these developments on the rise of the regulatory state. These changes, together with the general advance in the study of regulation, undoubtedly demand a re-evaluation of the theory of regulation, its methodologies and scope of application. This book is a perceptive investigation of recent evolutions in the manner and extent of governance through regulation. Scholars and students of comparative politics, public policy, regulation theory, institutional economics and political sociology will find it to be essential reading. It will also prove a valuable source of reference for those working or dealing with regulatory authorities and for business managers in private industries and services operating under a regulatory framework.

This book explores the innovation processes involved in the application and use of Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) at work and in everyday life. These are analysed through an unparalleled set of 23 European case studies, which, uniquely, address both the design/development and the implementation of ICT applications across the cultural, civic information and education sectors. The authors draw upon a range of analytical traditions - from sociology of technology and cultural and consumption studies, to computer systems design - to build an integrated, evolutionary understanding of the processes of innovation in ICT. Their social learning perspective addresses the collective learning and negotiation processes involved, highlighting the contribution of technology users, as well as designers and developers, in shaping innovation. The book will have an immediate readership amongst scholars of technology studies, as well as researchers and practitioners interested in computer system development and human computer interaction.