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National innovation policy

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Position statement

National innovation policy centers on a broad agenda to fuel a nation's innovative capacity and it seeks action from government, industry, academia and workers. A national innovation strategy builds on a contemporary understanding of innovation and tries to create a consensus to act on the changes required to establish an effective national framework.

Background:
National innovation works to address major societal challenges. It spells out the larger ecosystem that drives innovation, describes how innovation is changing, including its global dimensions, and makes recommendations based on the needs of an individual country or region.

Today, many nations find themselves at a unique and delicate historical juncture, shaped by two unprecedented shifts – one in the nature of global competition, the other in the nature of innovation itself:

  1. The world is becoming dramatically more interconnected and competitive.
  2. Where, how and why innovation occurs are in flux – across geography and industries, in speed and scope of impact, and even in terms of who is innovating.

Together, these large shifts suggest that we stand at an inflection point in history. Whether one looks at demographics, science, culture, technology, geopolitics, economics or the biological state of the planet, major changes are underway that will shape society for the next century and beyond. The actions that enterprises, governments, educational institutions, communities, regions and nations take right now will determine this future.

IBM Position:

Innovation generates the productivity that economists estimate has accounted for half of U.S. GDP growth over the past 50 years. And innovation has always been the way people solved the great challenges facing society. Therefore we need to take action:

Goals and Recommendations:

We must optimize our entire society for innovation. Recommendations are organized into three categories:

  • Talent – the human dimension of innovation, including knowledge creation, education, training and workforce support.
  • Investment – the financial dimension of innovation, including R&D investment, support for risk-taking and entrepreneurship, and encouragement of long-term innovation strategies.
  • Infrastructure – the physical and policy structures that support innovators, including networks for information, transportation, health care and energy; intellectual property protection; business regulation; and structures for collaboration among innovation stakeholders.

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