There are innovations that are invisible or not considered valuable in established research. Often, these are innovations that involve technical solutions developed by public organizations – even though they have played an important role in developing new technologies.
In the book Dark Innovation – After Neoliberal Tools and Techniques , author and professor Ryan T. MacNeil argues that innovation research has a strong neoliberal bias, with public sector product and technology innovations often marginalized, while private sector innovations receive the most attention and recognition.
The thesis is driven by practical cases from Canada’s Atlantic coast. There, public organizations have developed new technologies to monitor and understand nature, such as the ocean floor – an area less explored than the planet Mars.
With this book, the author wants to encourage innovation research to broaden its perspective and include all types of innovation that have a major societal impact. Even the “bad” ones that are government-funded.
