1. Oriental Institute of Management,
Mumbai 5th
April 2012
Professor M. M. Sharma, FRS
Emeritus Professor of Eminence
Institute of Chemical Technology
(Deemed University), Mumbai
Role of CReativity
and innovation
Professor M. M. Sharma

2.  Invention refers to any new idea that works
 Innovation refers to ideas which are converted to
profitable use
 Innovation is basically the oxygen for your future
 To lead industry you have to innovate properly
 Approach innovation in an innovative way
2MMS -OIM Mumbai

3.  Everything we know will become blunt over time
 Innovation is not a functional activity; it is a business
activity and you need every component of business-
sales, marketing, manufacturing- as a piece of it
 Innovation cannot be scheduled
 Research is subjective, inspirational and often
irrational; it is not a very structured activity; it can be
described as a random walk in a blind valley to find
whether it is really blind
 Results of Research are seldom known in advance
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4.  Innovation is tough to manage and easy to stifle
 Innovator is often harassed!
 While management demands Consensus, Control,
Certainty, and the Status quo, Creativity thrives on the
opposite – Instinct, Uncertainty, Freedom and
Iconoclasm.
 Management and creativity are antithetical
4MMS -OIM Mumbai

5.  Technology is the systematic orchestration of all
knowledge and experience to lead to something
practical and commercially useful
 Technology should be demarcated from scientific
pursuits which are concerned with creating new
knowledge and opening new frontiers and, in its own
right, is also cultural activity.
 Robert Solov, N.L., 1987,- at least 50% of economic
growth can be attributed to technology development
(In advanced countries it could be 70 to 80%)
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6.  Technology is big “C” of capital and is an expensive
equity and ability to make advances become sharper
 Technology is a crucial instrument, even a weapon, to
compete internationally in a truly free market
 Technology Development should be like a rowing
exercise and not a relay race
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7.  Technology can create an altogether new trajectory for
economic revolution
 Technology is nutrition
 Quantum jump take place through discontinuities and
not through linear path (e.g. transistors, lasers, NMR,
vaccines, etc.)
 Growth is based on Discovery as well as Market
Driven approaches (archetype polyamide- Nylons)
 How to find the needle in the Haystack and how to find
it fast?
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8. Both international and national
empirical evidence have recognized
the role of Technology progress in
economic growth through increase
in Total Factor Productivity (TFP)
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9. NAS / NAC – USA
Rebuilding a Real Economy: Unleashing
Engineering Innovation
The financial crisis that began in 2008 is a stark
Demonstration that we as a nation have put our
country at risk by allowing too much of our economy
to be based on sectors that do not create real value.
Relying on vaporous transactions to generate wealth is
no substitute for making real products and providing
real services
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10. • In the 21st
century, the United States and the rest
of the world will face some of the most serious
challenges of the modem age; feeding a growing
population, generating adequate energy without
destroying the environment, countering chronic
and emerging infectious diseases
• The first decade of the new century has shown
that engineering and technological innovation
will be essential for the United States and other
countries to meet these challenges
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11. • Entrepreneurs are generally innovators
and developers in the economy. They are
creative and are driven by animal spirit
of making profit. They are also risk
takers. These entrepreneurs facilitate
“learning by doing” in embodied and
disembodied technical progress
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12. • Innovation requires an open mind
and an atmosphere that encourages
people to imagine, think broadly,
collaborate, capture serendipity,
and have the freedom to create
[Innovation Ecosystem]
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13. • Curiosity needs to be coupled with
the ability to critically evaluate data,
accept input and be ready to adopt
the change. Lack of imagination kills
many a projects
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14. • Patience is a mandatory condition if
innovation is to thrive. There is a need
for the tenacity to overcome technical
obstacles and to champion their bold
new ideas in the face if disbelief
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15. • There is no one predictable path to
successful innovation. Half of the
great innovations in the world came
from great insights, the other half
happened by accident and none of
them on a schedule
• [Roger McNamee – a longtime
technology investor]
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16. • Innovation can be a messy and
inefficient process; it is not one
that can be managed through
simple metrics
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17. • The innovation process is driven by the
need to understand how something
works or why it doesn’t, to grow
revenue, reduce costs, or increase
productivity; to solve a customer’s
problem; or to keep healthy and save
lives
• [DNA of Invention]
• [JUDY ESTERIN- “CLOSING THE
INNOVATION GAP”, McGraw Hill]
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18. Technology innovation and its industrial
application first become strongly evident during
the industrial revolution of the eighteen and
nineteen centuries when individuals such as
Robert Stephenson, James Watt, Humphery
Davy and Michael Faraday, came to the fore
and were celebrated for their contributions to
both technology and the economy
- Christopher M Snowden, Rec. R. Soc., 2010, 64, S55-S63
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19. The pace of scientific innovation and its acceptance by
the public and business community increased during the
twentieth century.
The appreciation that science makes important
contribution to society became especially evident with
major breakthrough in medicine and health, such as
Fleming’s discovery of Penicillin for treating bacterial
infections, which drove the early growth of the
pharmaceutical industry in the middle of the last century.
Progressively the process of discovery and the monetary
or strategic value that may be created have been
recognized by business and governments
- Christopher M Snowden, Rec. R. Soc., 2010, 64, S55-S63
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20. Serendipity
Serendipity has always played a crucial role but does not
strike uninitiated persons. Examples in the Chemical
Industry- LDPE, HDPE, Cellulose nitrate, Teflon, Viagra,
etc.
Serendipitous events have often changed the Course of
Science
It is possible to create an environment where serendipity
gets a chance to work
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21. Lord May, The Former President, Royal Society, London
Systematically organized research activities arguably began
in the mid-1800s, in the nascent German Chemical Industry.
The subsequent centuries saw steady growth.
World War- II vividly demonstrated the importance of
Science (sometimes in regrettable ways). The past 50 years
have seen more advances in scientific knowledge than in all
past human history, while the number of research workers
today likewise exceeds the total ever previously to have
lived.
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22. It is the nature of basic “blue skies” research that its
fruits are unpredictable and largely unownable. It is a
classic “public good”. This is why most support for
basic research (roughly 80% in the U.K., with around 6%
from industry and most of the rest from Charities)
comes – and always will come- from Governments.
The Science Base is the absolute bedrock of economic
performance.
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23. There are three reasons why governments
invest in their science base:
1. For the new knowledge thus produced
2. (More important) To buy a ticket in the wider club of
knowledge producers
3. (Most important) For the successive cadres of trained
young people, some of whom will cycle back into the
knowledge- producing process, while others carry its
products out into industry, business, public service,
etc.
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24. Researchers are in the main driven by curiosity
On the other hand, their patrons, these days primarily
governments on behalf of taxpayers, are driven by
economic practicalities. This causes tension.
Create institutional cultures in which the best young
people are free to express their creativity and set their
own agendas, not being entrained in hierarchies of
deference to their seniors, no matter how distinguished
these may be.
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25. Dilemma of an Innovator
Ideas may be considered revolutionary or pedestrian
Faces humiliation
Genius prefers homogeneity of individuals rather than
heterogeneity of groups. We in the universities have
the spiritual freedom to try new ideas
Small firms have therefore greater propensity to take
risks
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26. Good innovation requires you to have a broad mix of
individuals. These range from pioneering extroverts, who
are possibly even stormy and irrational, at one end of
spectrum, through solid, systematic team players in the
middle, to dogmatic, rigid, or even reactionary characters
at the other extreme.
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27.  CEOs and Boards have become the major impediment
to sustaining innovation
 More than innovation, budgets dictate behavior
 It takes courage to view innovation as the enabler, not
the enemy, of earnings
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28. Seeking consensus for all breakthrough innovation
decisions is another deadly innovation disease; it wastes
valuable time and can dilute creative concepts. CEO can
protect an innovation culture, learn from failures rather
than punish or stigmatize then. Failure is an integral part
of the innovation process.
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29. Innovations require change and change requires
courage. Instilling a climate that recognizes the critical
need for innovations and encourages and rewards
innovative behavior requires a change in the mind set
of many CEO’s
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30. • A fertile relationship between Science and
Engineering is required
• The case of Plastic LED (Serendipitous)
• The inspiration to study the semi
conductive properties of molecules came
from curiosity, but was rapidly paralleled
by the desire to make something from it
-Dr. R. Friend, Physicist, University of Cambridge
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31.  We should downplay the distinction between
applied and ‘not yet applied’ science.
 Whether our motive is curiosity, or whether there
is a practical goal in sight, ‘problem solving’ is the
activity that motivates us all.
 The mindset is same, whether one is an engineer
facing a novel design challenge, or an astronomer
mapping the remote cosmos.
 There is as much intellectual challenge in the
applications as in the science itself
-M.J. Rees, Former President, The Royal Society, UK
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32. • Innovation is the electric charge that
makes the world’s heart beat
• To predict the future of Technologies is
more or less to predict the future of
Economics
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33. Put Science and Innovation at the heart of
• a strategy for long-term Economic Growth
• Priority investment in excellent people
• Strengthen Government’s use of science
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34. Fruits of Science are required for:
• Vaccines against pandemics
• Better food supplies
• ‘Clean’ energy
• More robust networks
• Equitable policies to preserve
ecosystem and climate
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35. • In-house R & D is essential even to benefit
from the OI
• Interactions with Universities is very
fruitful
Role of Open Innovation (OI)
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36. • No single action will reenergizes our
innovation system. We will need a portfolio of
interconnected, interdependent initiatives to
generate new knowledge and technology and
move that new knowledge into a competitive
world marketplace
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37. • The Government of China has a 15 year
plan for linking 60% of the country’s
overall economic growth to scientific and
technological innovations
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38.  We as a nation will have to innovate to survive
 We need to nurture best-minds and be elitist entirely
from brilliance point of view
 Remember we cannot feed tomorrow’s population
with today's agriculture
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39. There is no innovation that is more
important for the world than the
development of young minds
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