Is innovation in crisis? Why it's time to amp up research & development
January 9, 2023
The state of innovation wasn't great, even before you threw a pandemic or recession into the mix. Kevin Bryan explores why our process of innovation might be in crisis, and what might be done to solve the problem.
In the latest episode of the Rotman Executive Summary podcast, associate professor Kevin Bryan explores why Canada lags behind its peers like the U.S. when it comes to innovation, and what could be done to change that.
Bryan explores the pandemic’s impact on knowledge transfer and teamwork, and how higher interest rates may further knock down R&D efforts across industries.
“You might think, how could it be that in an era of artificial intelligence and robots, growth is slowing down?” says Bryan, the academic director of partnerships for the Creative Destruction Lab, the world’s largest science-based entrepreneurship program founded at the Rotman School of Management.
“Per dollar that we spend on R&D, the amount of social value and innovation we get is lower now than it was in the past... and we're throwing way more researchers into science than we did 50 or 100 years ago. So, it has to be the case that they're producing less growth per researcher.”
Next month on Rotman Executive Summary, professor Ming Hu explores the uncertain future of the sharing economy, using Uber — the “golden child” of the gig economy — as an example.
If you missed the previous episode with assistant professor Rachel Ruttan on how to give better advice, listen here.
New episodes of the Rotman Executive Summary are released monthly on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and Soundcloud. Desktop listeners can also tune in on Simplecast.
Would you rather read than listen in? Check out the full transcript of the episode here.