Innovation stagnation

This group of very diverse writers and thinkers is united in their view that greater levels of innovation are essential; that the levels of innovation that we currently see could be much greater, if we changed our approach; and that innovation is the best route to economic prosperity. You can read Nesta's recommendations for innovation-led growth in our Plan I report.

Read the Plan I report

Raghuram Rajan, a longstanding critic of the American financial system, argues that America's inability to innovate and create good jobs led to excessive borrowing and helped cause the financial crisis.
-Read more



Gregory Tassey, an economist specialising in innovation, has argued that without improving the innovation system, stimulus spending or quantitative easing will be diverted to unproductive uses and so will not translate into economic recovery.
-Read more



Tyler Cowen takes a dim view of current technological progress, suggesting that it has slowed down in the last 50 years, compared to the previous 50 (although he holds out some hope for more transformative innovation based on the internet emerging in the future):

Tyler Cowen - The Great Stagnation: How America Ate All the Low-Hanging Fruit of Modern History, Got Sick, and Will (Eventually) Feel Better

This is available as an e-book, but you can also watch Tyler outline his ideas in a TEDx talk.



Neal Stephenson is the author of hugely successful science-fiction novels, including 'Snow Crash' and 'Crytonomicon'. He also laments the end of the space age marked by the last shuttle flight, and worries that we aren't working or imagining the transformative innovations of the future:

Neal Stephenson - Innovation Starvation



Peter Thiel is an influential Silicon Valley investor and is famous as one of the very first backers of Facebook. He wants to see more venture money backing big technological change, and fewer looking at how to optimise online marketing.

Peter Thiel - The End of the Future



James Woudhuysen wrote an essay before the last election suggesting that the UK has been neglecting technological innovation and could achieve much more with greater policy coherence, and leading public opinion.
-Read more



In their new book 'Innovation Economics: The Race for Global Advantage', Robert Atkinson and Stephen Ezell of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation argue that it was the decline of U.S. innovation-based competitiveness that was the major factor in America's financial crisis and current lagging recovery.