Innovation Networks Taxonomy and Effciency - Toward Innovation Engineering

Innovation is considered instrumental in creating value and growth in the modern society and as such has been extensively studied in the past decade. In this context innovation networks are considered central for driving innovation in general and technological innovation specifically. Federal and local governments, as well as regional organizations, spend significant amounts of money in order to stimulate and support the formation of innovation networks that take on variety of forms and structures. Most of the research on innovation networks has focused on descriptive analysis. Using metrics borrowed from graph theory, as well as a newly defined metric, I set up the taxonomy and provide a systematic, quantitative, analysis of innovation networks in their broadest sense, topology-wise, as well as their efficiency from information flow perspective. I argue that public policy makers should apply a portfolio, holistic, approach to innovation networks and decide upon a balanced mix of different types of networks in order to maximize the innovation efficiency/intensity versus costs, a process that I refer to as innovation engineering.