Breakthrough innovations and where to find them

Giovanna Capponi; Arianna Martinelli; Alessandro Nuvolari

doi:10.1016/j.respol.2021.104376

Breakthrough innovations and where to find them

Giovanna Capponi, Arianna Martinelli, Alessandro Nuvolari

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

Abstract

Breakthrough innovations significantly depart from common practices and can potentially reshape existing markets, create new markets, and prompt the emergence of new technological trajectories. The crucial role that breakthrough innovations play in technological progress has stimulated a lively line of research investigating methods to identify them in actual empirical contexts. Despite this ongoing effort, the availability of data on breakthrough innovations is still scarce and seems to have prevented, at least so far, an integrated perspective comprising both their technical and economic significance. We address this limitation by developing a method that uses award-winning innovations which have been successfully commercialized to find breakthrough patents on a large scale. For the period 1976–2013, in a sample of 138,467 USPTO patents, we identify 17,176 breakthrough innovations. Relevant robustness checks support the validity of our classification. We then exploit this sample to assess the sources of breakthrough innovations.

Original language	English
Article number	104376
Pages (from-to)	1-15
Journal	Research Policy
Volume	51
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2021.104376
Publication status	Published - Jan 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
The application procedure requires a detailed description of the innovation and evidence of its commercial success covering a period of two to five years before the submission. Specifically, candidates should support their application by providing the patterns of growth of earnings associated with the innovation, providing information on indicators such as profitability, market shares, and others. Because of the meritocratic nature of the award, the Committee refrained from fixing a number of prizes to be given each year ( McFadzean, 1970 ). Initially, the body in charge of selecting winners was a mix between members from within and outside the government, forming an Advisory Committee which was assisting the Prime Minister by making recommendations about the winners. This group was also supported by two subordinate committees under the guidance of the Ministry of Technology ( Mountbatten-Windsor, 1965 ). In 1999, the subordinate committees were replaced by appointed Panels of ad-hoc Judges with the relevant expertise, one for each Award category. The Panel of Judges examining the Queen's Award for Innovation is chaired by the Permanent Secretary of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. Applicants are initially screened by a group of contracted technical assessors, who provide the first round of recommendations ( Department for Business Energy and Industrial Strategy, 2013 ). In September 2018, we had the chance to speak with two contracted technical assessors who provided more details on the selection process pipeline 3 3 and the criteria adopted to establish innovation quality 4 4 (personal communications with two contracted technical assessors, 28/09/2018)

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 The Authors

Keywords

Breakthrough Innovations
Queen's Awards
Patent Value

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1-s2.0-S0048733321001724-mainFinal published version, 1.48 MBLicence: CC BY

Cite this

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Breakthrough innovations and where to find them

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

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