Authors: Malena Ingemansson
Abstract
Ingemansson M. (2010) Success as Science but Burden for Business? – On the Difficult Relationship
Between Scientific Advancement and Innovation. Doctoral Thesis No. 148, Department
of Business Studies, Uppsala University, 194pp.
Today, a general policy and investment recipe for economic growth and innovation, on both a
national and an international level, is to base commercial ventures on novel scientific solutions.
From this perspective, scientific research is seen as an untapped source of innovation,
and the ambition is to make new scientific knowledge more easily transferable to business
settings, where it is supposed to generate direct economic benefits.
Since the instigation of the Human Genome Organisation Project in 1990, which set out to
map the entire genetic composition of the average human being, great expectations have been
put on biotechnology, and it has been viewed as the new gold mine for both scientific and
business advancement. Through research it is expected to deliver new scientific knowledge
primarily about previously untreatable illnesses and, as an industry, it is expected to produce
new technical solutions realising this knowledge. This expectation has directed large amounts
of investment capital to biotechnology in the pursuit of capitalising on new scientific discoveries
through their commercialisation.
This investigation is an empirically based process study of one such innovation process.
With a network approach, focusing particularly on resource combinations, this study aims to
create a better understanding of what is involved in trying to achieve innovation based on new
scientific solutions. The specific case of the commercialisation of pyrosequencing, a new
method for the analysis of genetic material, demonstrates the difficulty of making a scientific
breakthrough into a useful business resource. The innovation process is investigated from
several perspectives. By looking at the development of something new, at its large-scale
production, and widespread use, this study shows how these aspects represent vastly different
economic logics. It also demonstrates how great a challenge it can be for these to function
together in the attempt of achieving successful innovation.
Keywords: scientific research, commercialisation, innovation, use, biotechnology, economic
logic, resource interaction
Publish Year: 2010