China and Innovation – Now Overtaking Japan

It’s not that long ago that a colleague told me that innovation would come out of China two generations hence. I did not believe him after seeing a little of what China was doing first hand.

Interesting to read this article today in the Start Advertiser:

As a result, China is expected to overtake Japan soon as the world’s second-largest R&D investor, although it still remains far behind the U.S. China’s domestic doctorate awards in science and engineering have also increased more than tenfold since the early 1990s, and its share of the global pool of researchers has grown from less than 14 percent in 2002 to more than 20 percent today. 

Only a few years ago, China’s approach to innovation hardly played a role in international economic diplomacy. Today, it is a hot topic in U.S.-China economic relations, adding further to contentious disputes about exchange rates, trade and foreign direct investment.

The article continues:

Rather than fearing China, we need to focus our research and policy debates constructively on how this relationship can be improved.

I could not agree more. The entire article can be found here.

And now this in the Harvard Business Review Blog on August 4 for another perspective.

China moves ahead with Patents and Innovation

So you think that China is behind in the innovation stakes? Think again. A recent article in The Economist indicates that more patents may be filed in China this year than in Japan for the first time, putting China in striking distance of America. Moreover, Chinese firms are forging into foreign markets. In 2008-09 Japanese geeks filed for 11% fewer “international patents” under the Patent Co-operation Treaty, while Chinese nerds filed 18% more, according to a recent report by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO).

I find this really interesting. Just two years ago a colleague spent significant time telling me how far behind China was in innovation, and how we would have to wait for the next generation to really drive innovation ahead.

Read the story here.

You must watch Hans Rosling!

If you have fifteen minutes, please watch this video. Even if you don’t, you need to watch it anyway. Make the time!

Not only is it an eye opener about the rise and rise of India and China as economies, Hans’ presentation is unbelievably stimulating. Forget the tie and suit PowerPoint presentation – I wish every talk I went to (and gave) was just like this one.

More on China and Innovation

Its is really interesting to see the press coverage China is receiving in the Innovation space. In this article from Forbes, the following statement is made:

“My hunch says that in the future anything that has to do with scale will likely come out of China or even India.”

Other points are:

1. If you combine the mobile access, people getting into the system, and the database 51Job has for employment opportunities, the numbers of the largest player in Japan or Monster.com look like peanuts.
2. What is the one core competence that China has which will drive innovation? One answer is scale.
3. I think that there will be some cleantech deployments that China might experience earlier and faster. Wind power is certainly one, as is the use of LED lights to reduce energy requirements. That may lead to innovation

There is a huge amount of activity taking place in China with respect to Innovation – especially Open Innovation. See other entries on this blog.

You should read the entire article from Forbes.

Open Innovation in China and India

Excellent posting on YouTube of John Hagel III talking about innovation networks and Open Innovation in China. See posting below also on TSMC. Watch this space! As organizations in North America are struggling with the “how”, large Chinese corporates are implementing Open Innovation networks as we speak!