The importance of technological innovation

This chapter focuses on a deeper understanding of technological change and argues that technological innovation is essential for achieving sustainable development. It provides a word of caution about overgeneralizing in predicting where disrupting innovation will originate and what policies work best in a particular national or sectoral context. "Technological change" is a general and imprecise term that encompasses invention, innovation, diffusion, and technology transfer. Technological innovation is the first commercially successful application of a new technical idea. The classical model of technological innovation considered invention, innovation, and diffusion to operate in a linear way. Evolutionary approaches may proceed far too slowly to stem sustainability concerns related to global climate change and increases in toxic pollution. As industrial economies mature, innovation in many sectors may become more and more difficult and incremental, and regulatory and governmental policies are increasingly influenced by the purveyors of the dominant technology, which becomes more resistant to change.