Professor David Gann, Vice-President and Chair in Innovation and Technology Management, Imperial College, London, gives the 2014 Barclay Lecture at Green Templeton College
This lecture explores the emergence of new patterns of innovation arising with the advent of the Internet and big data. These patterns of innovation are associated with different forms of entrepreneurship, collaboration across traditional boundaries, and new forms of funding and types of jobs. Evidence and case studies from innovation in the digital world will show the problems and opportunities that arise with these new patterns. I will argue that to realise their social benefits and business opportunities new fields of research are needed, drawing on emerging bodies of knowledge in, for example, data science, bio-medical engineering and behavioural economics. The lecture explores how these patterns have emerged and speculates on their consequences for universities, businesses, financial institutions and government.