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This episode of Innovation Matters explores with Marian Tupy of the Cato Institute’s Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity how innovation has helped to expand the resource base and improve living standards, even as the global population has grown.

The discussion highlights historical and contemporary examples of how innovation can increase resource efficiency and availability, providing an optimistic view of our future and the role of technology in addressing today’s challenges. It also delves into the broader implications for sustainability and future development.

We often see innovation as a linear process – from basic research over invention to innovation. But is that how knowledge develops and how innovation works? Could the concept of evolution help elucidate the dynamics better? How would such a perspective explain how knowledge evolves into, adapts to, and underpins societal and economic transformation? And what does that mean in practice, for entrepreneurship, policy, and how society works?

Innovation Matters explores these questions with Prof. Jason Potts of the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, who explains the importance of understanding the evolutionary nature of knowledge and how this perspective can inform policies that support more experimentation and learning.

In the past two decades, Open Innovation and its relatives, such as Open Science, have come to the fore as a paradigm contrasting with the view of innovation as something emerging from within firms. Referring to the practice of sourcing ideas from external sources and sharing valuable information widely, Open Innovation is essential to the creation of a broader innovation commons and to understanding a range of emergent phenomena that turn the traditional view on its head.

As Prof. Henry Chesbrough, Berg Professor of Open Innovation and Sustainability at LUISS University of Rome, explains in Innovation Matters, this potential is set to continue growing, as we learn more and more about how to make better use of digital and frontier technologies.

Innovation has created huge wealth and opportunities over the past two centuries, and since the mid-20th century in particular. But over the past decades, many point to stagnating productivity. That makes it all the more important to aim for a fundamental reconceptualization and rebirth of innovation for the future.

In this episode, Prof. Alex Tabarrok argues that by embracing a culture of growth and significantly reforming education, intellectual property laws, and bureaucratic regulations, societies can reignite the kind of innovation that drives substantial economic advances and improves the standard of living worldwide.

Prof. Alex Tabarrok holds the Bartley J. Madden Chair in Economics at the Mercatus Center and is a professor of economics at George Mason University.

In this episode of Innovation Matters, we delve into the complex interplay between government policies, market dynamics, and transformative innovation with Dr. Anders Kärnä. As we navigate through the nuances of economic development and public policy, Dr. Kärnä offers a critical analysis on how governments can either foster or hinder innovation through industrial policies. Drawing from historical examples and current economic theories, this episode explores the delicate balance between governmental intervention and market freedom that underpins successful innovation ecosystems worldwide.

Sustainability is a pressing concern in the fashion and textile industry.

In this episode of “The UN Forest Podcast”, host Samata Pattinson is joined by Åsa Degerman, Ben Selby and Carlo Covini to discuss the transformative role of forests and new technologies in making fashion more sustainable and circular.
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About the UN Forest Podcast

The UN Forest Podcast is a series produced by the Joint UNECE/FAO Forestry and Timber Section to showcase that the potential of forests goes beyond trees. Each episode features special guests and speakers who bring insights on forests as our strongest allies in fighting climate change and creating a sustainable future now and for generations to come.

The views expressed in this episode are those of the individuals involved and should not be interpreted as endorsements by the United Nations, its affiliated organizations, its officials or Member States.
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Credits:

Samata Pattinson, CEO of BLACK PEARL
Åsa Degerman, Project Manager at OnceMore®
Ben Selby, CFO and Deputy CEO of Spinnova
Carlo Covini, Project Manager Marketing Textiles at Lenzing
Nicola Sangs, Editor and Producer
Paola Deda, Director, Forests, Land and Housing Division of UNECE

Audio credits:

“vintage jingle”
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