Increasing the Capacity of Companies to Absorb Inventions From Research Organizations and Encouraging People to Innovate¹

Europe lacks competitiveness due to lack of innovation. Reasons include a lack of transfer of knowledge from research organizations to businesses European Union (EU) suggests a new approach. We find it lacks holism, although EU requires systems thinking in other documents. We suggest a dialectical system of viewpoints to make the approach requisitely holistic. Liaison offices, university-industry consortia, professional unions, and alumni associations are the four organizational forms which the EU suggests. This suggestion leaves out the issues of values, cultures, ethics, and norms. It also forgets how long periods of time have been necessary and how much time will be needed for an innovative and requisitely holistic change to occur. The feeling of interdependence, i.e., mutual need for each other, is a precondition which requires the practice of a systems approach. The government acting as a big buyer in the modern buyers market might be one way toward a solution, although not a simple one: It requires the government people to change themselves. Education of young people and their mentors for innovating may also help.