Are You Prepared to Innovate?

R&D Today – sharing ideas, good practice and innovation in R&D management

We have found the Pentathlon provides a useful framework for discussion – click through to explore further.

Latest News

How Tesla made sustainable innovation desirable

Tesla's new product strategy used 'valuation entrepreneurship' to successfully launch a high-end battery electric vehicle to the market; when others had failed to gain traction. The way it achieved this has been investigated by Maximilian Palmié and his co-workers, they reveal that reputational politics and blame avoidance tactics were key factors.

Andrew Stanton at the launch of ISO 56001

The Innovation Management System creates space for innovation

For many years, the innovation has been characterized by ideation, creating concepts and validation. The IMS offers an added focus: look at the opportunity to see what will generate most value, and create the processes and mechanisms to deliver that value.

Driving an innovation culture at Velindre University NHS Trust

Velindre University NHS Trust is implementing the ISO 56001 Innovation Management System to drive an innovation culture and enhance service delivery

Innovation management within a highly regulated environment

Steven Armitage discovered the Innovation Management System by chance and saw the potential for it within the aviation industry. It offers a structured approach to identifying the opportunity, creating concepts, and validating them.

Is the FDA’s waterfall framework for design control outdated for medtech development?

The Federal Drug Agency’s 1997 design control guidance – built on a traditional waterfall framework – is increasingly misaligned with the dynamic landscape of medical device development, argues Dr Stuart Grant of Archetype Medtech, a med-tech innovation management consultancy.

Professor Carsten P. Welsch promotes digitalisation

Digitalisation of existing companies is key to economic revival

The potential of the ‘Great North’ to drive the digitalisation of the UK’s economy has been underestimated, according to Professor Carsten P Welsch, Director of the Liverpool Centre for Doctoral Training for Innovation in Data Intensive Science (LIV.INNO).

Sharing best practice with the ISO 56001 Innovation Management System

For many organisations innovation happens in silos - there is poor visibility by senior management of the process and little sharing of best practice between business units. Creating a common and consistent language for describing innovation terminology is a major benefit of the ISO Innovation Management Systems standard 56000, says Jon Rains, Group Innovation Manager at Mott MacDonald.

Selling silver or a market opportunity? Corporate innovation and the R&D tax model

The recent report "Selling Less of the Family Silver" has provoked some interesting responses. Valerie Lynch, Chairman of AND Technology Research, gives her perspective on why the government relies on R&D Tax Credits to support corporate innovation.

Jeremy (centre) enjoying the boat trip in Wuhan

The Next Generation of R&D Management in China

“It’s fantastic being here and the conference was wonderful,” says Jeremy Klein, Chairman of RADMA, about The Next Generation R&D Management in China Conference, which was held in Wuhan on 15-17 September 2024.

R&D in China – the trends, models and the learning points

R&D in China is at a historical height – R&D expenditure is 2.4% of GDP, patent applications are significantly increased, and the phenomenal emergence of regional innovation hubs across the country is impacting innovation globally. Underpinning it all are advances in R&D Management.

Extended Reality Visual Guidance can increase performance of industry tasks

Extended Reality (XR) technologies, which include Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR), are transforming the way we perceive and react with the environment and have been described as a key enabling technology for the fourth industrial revolution. New research provides insights into how it can be applied within an industrial environment.

Selling less of the family silver: report calls for better UK innovation policy

"Selling less of the family silver" report by the Cambridge Judge Business School raises concern about how sales of UK start-ups to overseas strategic buyers, has become the routine option as entrepreneurs struggle to scale their technology companies. It calls for a better UK innovation and industrial policy.

Introducing RADMA Scholars

R&D Today is the outreach site for the Research and Development Management Association, a charitable organisation that supports research, best practice and innovation. www.radma.net

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Leon Pietschmann

Nopparuj Chindasombatcharoen

Abderrahim Nekkache

Maryam Ghorbankhani

R&D Conference Tracks

R&D and Innovation Management is a dynamic field. The conference aims to capture the current interests of researchers and practitioners, curated into a number of tracks.

Entrepreneurial Ecosystems, Innovation Ecosystems and platforms

With the growth of digital platforms the need for Entrepreneurial Ecosystems to be geographically co-located has become less crucial. This is creating the opportunity for looser, more dispersed innovation ecosystems.

Intellectual Property Rights

Around 90 per cent of the value of modern-day companies is determined by their intangible assets, which includes Intellectual Property Rights (IPR), such as patents, copyrights, trademarks and design rights. Formal and informal leverages can be used to create and protect value.

Business model innovation

Business model innovation is vital to the future sustainability of organisations and firms. With digitalization, electrification, and the circular economy, among the factors reshaping the ways industries operate, adapt, and innovate, necessitating novel business models.

Sustainable Innovation

Sustainable innovation supports growth and profitability by facilitating product reuse and circularity and making business operations more efficient and safe. It is also essential for the health of the planet.

Innovation Leadership

Although inherently risky, innovation management has an underlying body of knowledge, tools and approaches that can be widely applied. Here is an introduction to some of these concepts.

R&D Project Exchange

The R&D Project Exchange offers a unique platform for collaboration between university students and companies. This initiative invites students and businesses to co-develop research proposals, ensuring a balanced approach that addresses both academic objectives and real-world industry challenges.

The innovation disconnect

There is a disconnect between R&D spend and performance, says Professor Magnus Karlsson. Ahead of the launch of the international standard ISO 56000 he explains that the purpose of an Innovation Management System is to improve an organisation’s ability to realise value under conditions of uncertainty.

Is it time to professionalise Innovation Management?

The challenge of how Innovation Management can gain the recognition it deserves stimulated a lively discussion in our webinar “Is it time to professionalise Innovation Management”. If you missed the webinar – you can watch the presentations from our two speakers and listen to the full discussion via a podcast on Soundcloud.

Innovation Management System ISO 56002:2019

Innovation is the driving force for companies to stay relevant in the market, observes the guidance for ISO 56002:2019 Innovation management system.

Is innovation management a profession? And should it be?

Innovation is the force behind superior business performance and its managers provide this competitive advantage through their skills and expertise. But is it a profession?

How well do you know the Innovation Managers’ Body of Knowledge?

To increase the professional standing of innovation managers, the Innovationsledarna has developed a voluntary certification based on a ‘Body of Knowledge’ and ISO/IEC 17024:2012.

Special Features

Dynamic capabilities for strategic innovation

By cultivating 'dynamic capabilities' an organization can develop the strategic agility to continuously assess and – if necessary – renew their competitive advantages to survive and thrive in the future.

Would a ‘Strategy Lab’ provide sustainable renewal of competitive advantage?

The strategic renewal of competitive advantage is vital to sustain growth says Prof Lysander Weiss, he discusses the role of dynamic capabilities and outlines how these can be encapsulated in the Strategy Lab.

Blind faith or hard evidence – does Design Thinking actually work in R&D?

It is estimated that as few as 10% of new R&D projects are successful, so finding ways to navigate the disruption, reimagine better futures and out-innovate the competition is at the top of every R&D agenda. One emerging prescription that’s getting a lot of attention is design thinking, and it is increasingly being adopted in R&D departments and teams.

Belt and Road Initiative high speed train

China’s Belt and Road Initiative, a new model for Open Innovation

China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a strategy initiated by the People’s Republic of China that seeks to connect Asia with Africa and Europe via land and maritime networks. It aims to improve regional integration, increase trade and stimulate economic growth.

Penetrating the fog of Agile

I was recently asked to review an innovation project developing new sustainable products. Sustainability is usually a good topic for sparking heated debates, but on sustainability the team seemed pretty aligned. One area they did argue about was Agile. They decided to use Agile in their project, but the halfway house that they ended up with created a lot of friction. The tension revolved around the definition: ‘This isn’t Agile!’

Raspberry Pi is the epitome of “frugal” and “miniature” product mindset

The resurgence of frugal innovation

From the perspective of economic and societal revival, frugal innovation serves as a new paradigm of thinking, processing, and development of products or services. Embedded within its core, is the mantra of doing more, with less, for more people.

Events

ISPIM Innovation Conference 2025: Innovation Powered by Nature

15-18 June 2025, Bergen, Norway. Engage with fellow innovation professionals from academia, industry, consulting and the public sector in a truly diverse event with people attending from across the globe.

BSI Innovation Day 2024 – An Innovation Management Conference

On 14 November BSI is running its Innovation Day at the Design Museum in London. It aims to provide a mutually beneficial dialogue with innovation managers, and to share the latest thinking that’s been developed in the international innovation management space.

ISPIM Connects Osaka Conference

“Innovation’s Role in Connecting and Empowering Society”. 2-4 December 2024, Osaka, Japan. This conference is organised by ISPIM together with The Japan Innovation Network.

R&D Management Conference 2025

30 June – 2 July 2025, Institute of Management of Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Pisa