WEB FOCUS
Innovation
In this focus
What's both radical and incremental? Aimless and goal-oriented? Process and product? Innovation — now the subject of a monthly series of Nature Commentaries. Expert authors from business, economics, law, policy and research look to define innovation and explore how it arises and how it can be managed, encouraged and facilitated. The commentaries reveal that the idea of a single innovator or inventor is fading, and probe how innovation is increasingly the product of an entire ecology which includes both basic and applied research but also the venture capital system and external motivating forces coming together in the right mix.
Editorial
A case for nurture
Innovation is a complex ecosystem that requires careful cultivation.
Nature 454, 918 (21 August 2008) doi:10.1038/454918a
Commentary
Innovation policy: not just a jumbo shrimp
Policies that predict and direct innovative research might seem to be a practical impossibility, says David H. Guston, but social sciences point to a solution.
David H. Guston
Nature 454, 940 (21 August 2008) doi:10.1038/454940a
Commentary
China: The prizes and pitfalls of progress
Pushes to globalize science must not threaten local innovations in developing countries, argues Lan Xue.
Lan Xue
Nature 454, 398–401 (24 July 2008) doi:10.1038/454398a
Commentary
A new relationship
Fuelling innovation requires a different kind of collaboration between industrial and academic researchers, argues Bill Destler.
Bill Destler
Nature 453, 853–854 (12 June 2008) doi:10.1038/453853a