(Hi) Engineering innovation: lessons from history!

(Hi) Engineering innovation: lessons from history!

The UK boasts one of the best engineering research bases in the world and there’s an expectation, rightly so, that this research should provide economic benefit. 

However, as David Payne (who came up with the erbium doped fibre amplifier – a key enabler of the World Wide Web) once said: 

‘research is turning CASH into ideas; but innovation is turning ideas into cash.’

The question is, how do we ensure the two are properly linked and that the MONEY we put in results in money ultimately going back into the UK economy?

There are many groups and individuals who are working very hard to identify the right conditions for innovation but, despite all the policy activity in this area, I believe that it is only by understanding the motivations for research, that we can devise the right incentives for innovation.

One way is to look to our rich history of engineering innovations, both successes and failures, to learn more about these motivations. 

I believe they fall into several broad categories: fashion, devotion, career and reputation.

Ionic liquids, for example, can tell us a lot about fashion in research.  These liquid state salts were ‘discovered’ in 1914, and the first patent in 1934 was followed by many others. 

Even in recent times, the number of scientific publications per year in the field has increased by 100-fold in 1996 to 2006. 

Proponents have been very optimistic that ionic liquids hold the key to future developments in a variety of sectors– from pharmaceuticals, to batteries and nuclear energy and indeed they may. 

Yet only one major company uses them for major business purposes - BASF, for acid scavenging.

The contribution of research to economic growth will be limited if the best researchers are being diverted into cul de sacs, but acknowledging fashion as a research DRIVER is a starting point towards ensuring that we benefit from the excitement and glamour of fashionable research, as well as reaping genuine societal and economic benefits.

Devotion is another motivation. 

It is what drove Sir Tim Berners-Lee to INVENT the World Wide Web and then refuse to patent it, to ensure it reached its full potential.

Similar devotion was shown by engineer and inventor James Robert Napier in the development of his coffee machine, which formed the basis of the modern ESPRESSO MACHINE. 

Napier harnessed knowledge at the frontiers of chemical and mechanical engineering all in service of a very humble, everyday objective.

Devotion is the hardest DRIVER to incentivise and it cannot be taught, but you can take action to ensure those researchers devoted to their innovation pick up the soft and hard skills that will enable them to exploit it.

Sir William Wakeham believes understanding what motivated history’s pioneering engineers is key to creating the right incentives for innovation.

As a respected chemist, celebrated inventor and president of the Royal Society, it’s safe to say Humphry Davy was a leader in his field. However, there are a couple of examples from his work that can tell us a thing or two about the DRIVERS of career and reputation in research.

Early in his career, at the end of the 18^th century, Davy spent much time investigating nitrous oxide at the Pneumatic Institute, a new medical facility.

Despite being one of the brightest minds of his time, he failed to develop its use as an analgesic, in part because at that stage career considerations took precedence over devotion.

Davy didn't see any future for himself working on his sponsor’s agenda around the health implications of gases, which it is clear he privately discounted as a fashionable diversion. 

Instead, he treated his experiments as a training ground and launching pad for his own spectacular scientific career. 

In doing so, he missed the most lucrative application of nitrous oxide and it took another 50 years for the gas’s application as an analgesic to be promoted.

Perhaps Davy’s biggest public embarrassment was when he was COMMISSIONED to find a way to stop iron and copper bolts corroding on the bottom of ships. 

Davy developed iron protectors to preserve the copper by acting as what we would describe today as ‘sacrificial anodes’, and immediately published his work.

The anodes were effective, but they also encouraged barnacles to the extent that ships became barely operational. 

Davy wasn't wrong – indeed modern specifications for cathodic protection are similar - and it would have only taken a few steps to solve this problem, but he valued his reputation too much and published far too early as a result.

These two examples show how different motivations can damage the potential for innovations, and give an idea of how we can manage or react to different DRIVERS to ensure the best outcomes.

Researchers can be driven by fashion, by curiosity, by interest in the subject matter, by career prospects or by reputation. 

By reading up on the gestation of some of the best innovations in the past, we can ease the passage of new ones today.

One way to improve the connection between research and innovation is to provide a demand pull through procurement. Prizes too can play a role to complement MARKET pull, and to alter the valuation academia puts on specific technologies and sectors. Schemes such as the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Enterprise Hub, also help match aspiring innovators (driven by devotion) with industry leaders to help them develop the skills needed to commercialise their ideas effectively.

By better understanding the factors affecting innovation, we can perhaps reverse the situation such as that once outlined by Bill Gates, where research into a cure for MALE PATTERN BALDNESS attracts more funding than research into finding a cure for malaria.

The Bill Gates...., To Be Continued...,