Innovation de Rupture

In recent debates, and also with reference to the Draghi Report, the concept of breakthrough innovation or in French “Innovation de Rupture” is often mentioned as the thing Europe should focus on. Aligned to that concept is the view that fundamental research should be prioritized because it generates the breakthrough for new technologies. The critique is that since the EIC does mainly fund projects and start-ups at TRL 6 and further, it addresses mature technologies.

Science Fiction

This is a very romantic, or science fiction view of technology. I have provoked more than one audience by saying the technology is only technology and is only a breakthrough innovation when its made by skilled workers and available at affordable prices in the drugstore. History has some experience of mass use of TRL5 technologies with the German Wunderwaffen. They were not effective. It took decades before spin-offs of the “Man on the Moon” projects reached the department store. Some were great to protect against the rain (PFAS) but a nuisance when spread in the environment.

TRL-itis

There is a reason why TRL scales goes from 1 to 9, because technology at TRL 3 level is nice for publications, is a hypothetical wealth in patents and a cemetery of start-ups. There is now way to skip the TRL 7-9 stages and they are not without risks, not without costs as the scaling up is rarely a linear mechanics. Substantial flaws in formulation can lead to quality defects when moved to scale. Sometimes defects or a too high defect rate or a too broad range of properties leads to a non-economic proposition or a risk level that is unacceptable in a medical context or an airplane. Problems at TRL 8-9 are sometimes engineering problems that can be solved by engineers but very often approximation errors at TRL 3-5 that are problematic or lethal at TRL 8-9 stage.

Innovation is Iteration

That is why innovation (or the TRL system is not a neat linear stage to stage process. There is often iteration needed (back to square 1 or 3) and in any case a very thorough stage-gating process is needed to go to the next step. Because every next TRL engages much higher costs. A commercial viable product often requires to be made at large scale: millions of items of ten thousand tons. If they do not reach scale: they are nice talking topics at worst, niche products at best. So theyare not “innovations de rupture”, the only breakthrough thy attain is in PR, but not in the factory nor in the drugstore and rarely in a war situation. The US won the second world war because of proven designs, mass production and easy maintenance.

Cover the Valley of Death

There is a good reason why the EIC has been developed: to cover the gap between publications and available innovations, to cut off the road to a cemetery of start-ups. The EIC is a range of instruments that enables to overcome the Valley of Death. The EIC Board is currently evaluating if the current range of instruments is enough. The board is very happy with the inception of a next step: STEP a first attempt to make available larger tickets that invite private capital to join in. But it requires more (as Draghi mentions): pooling of critical mass in innovative public procurement, and improvement of the regulatory context to enable faster deployment of products, production processes and services.

Drag-on beyond Draghi

The board agrees with Draghi that early-stage innovation (TRL 1-5) need better harvesting and transition to further TRLs. There is merit to allow for substantial curiosity driven or science push research, but that requires a very active identification of breakthroughs and ground breaking teams to bring technologies the necessary steps further. Since the whole transition from TRL 1 to 9 often takes two decades that has considerable implications for the design of funding instruments (especially in duration and in availability and access to follow-up instruments.

Manhattan transfer

For urgent needs the Manhattan project is still the best type of example: define an desired outcome,allocate the budget allow for dynamic planning as well as redundancies in the planning and ferm allocation of budget for alternative routes. O and Manhattan was not a grant based instrument but publicly planned and procured, because the right to bear arms should certainly not extend to nuclear weapons.?????

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