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Why Market-led Innovation is Long Over-due

by Dr David Dent FRSB (Guest Author) | 13th Jun 2025 | Hethel Innovation

Opportunity may be science or market-led but the predominant research model is that based on
science supply, requiring translation as opposed to market-led interdisciplinary research that
meets end-user needs from the outset.

In 2010, I published an article in the journal Science in Parliament entitled “A Gap in the
Innovation Market”. I was at the time a Vice President of the UK Parliamentary and Scientific
Committee. I wrote the article because I had continued over a number of years to be vexed by an
issue that sadly remains an issue – nearly 15 years later. I wrote:

“I am constantly amazed that despite the importance of the market in all other aspects of UK
politics and economics, how little influence it appears to have in debates about scientific
innovation and the organisation of our research base… The market seems to have only a very
limited role in our nation’s innovation process which is very much science supply-led rather than
market demand-led. The market appears to be viewed only as a beneficiary of outputs of a
process which may or may not meet particular market opportunities rather than the main driver of
demand for specific scientific innovations.”

I am not alone in holding such views but the startling fact is that someone else who shared my
concern was an economist writing in 1966 – that economist was Jacob Schmookler. His views
were at the time wholly maligned and marginalised. They are now a bit more widely accepted by
economists, largely because Schmookler’s research confirmed a definite link between market
need and invention. Despite this however, his views on the importance of market need as a driver
of innovation have not found their way into mainstream science and research, particularly with
regard to the public sector.

It can be, and it is right to argue that industry research is certainly more geared-up to take into
account markets and demand, but often also larger companies look to steer a market and
regulations in the direction of its products and services as much as designing them to meet the
needs and specifications of their end-users. This does not always favour competitive smaller
businesses.

The market is, should be, and needs to be – a driver of innovation, since opportunities for
innovation do not just arise from scientific research, or are not just science or technology-led, but
rather opportunities derived from problems or gaps in a market for which a solution is required –
they can be market-led i.e. market-led innovations.

In the UK in particular, it is as if we are looking at a singular one-way process from scientific
research to the development of a technology that eventually will bring a benefit to an unspecified
market – without ever considering that research carried out at the market-end can also deliver
opportunities through identifying genuine market gaps in need of a solution. A market-led
approach then would require the ability to identify emerging trends, problems, gaps, opportunities
for which appropriate technical solutions can be designed. But no-one undertakes such research
into markets in this way or for this purpose. Such research is the counter to scientific research
exploring gaps in scientific knowledge. But where is the public research institute undertaking
market research to identify opportunities for market-led innovation, information of crucial
importance and value to commerce.

Everyone has a “notion of market” but who really studies, creates structures, typologies and
undertakes analyses to search for gaps and opportunities. Commercial market/business analysts
certainly produce reports of production, outputs, forecasts and assessments of market
confidence but these are aimed at informing the sector about economic outlook and trends, with
data price tags to match; they are rarely looking for gaps or needs, or asking what specifications
are required to design a product, service or process are required to fill those gaps and needs.
There is a major gap and a flaw in our approach here!

If we think of innovation being set between two complementary capacities and resources – one of
science and the other of market … in each case both an input for, and an output of the other, then
why would we pursue only a single route of science-supply-led innovation. Science can be led by
the market and be a beneficiary of opportunities generated by the market – the market should not
be regarded as some distant receptacle in receipt of a votive offering from science, and worse –
not even an appropriate offering for the market.

A simple conclusion that can be drawn from such a consideration is that billions are annually
spent on one kind of input, scientific research in order to deliver innovation to the market, but only
minuscule amounts of public sector money by comparison is dedicated to the search and
research of markets for innovation. If market gaps and opportunities can be identified and the if
the technical specifications of that need can be identified, then a research problem and
programme of work can be designed specifically to address that need.

In such a scenario, a single discipline approach to designing a solution is less likely, as we then
encourage true interdisciplinary collaborative efforts with each discipline making a targeted
contribution needed as component of an overall solution. Such an approach gives greater
meaning and purpose to interdisciplinary research and focusses research effort on delivery of
relevant inputs from each party – who could argue that such an approach is not required!

One of the reasons that so many SMEs fail in their early years is due to a lack of business
intelligence and market knowledge, many technologies also fail because they do not meet an
actual market need, are based on inappropriate product specifications and are poorly marketed.
The key word here is always ‘market’. The need to better understand markets is key to technology
and business success and yet so little research is undertaken. There is a need for more public
market research to deliver market-led innovation, to empower start-ups, SMEs and scientific
research to develop products, services and processes defined by the specifics of market-need.

 

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About the Author

Dr David Dent FRSB (Guest Author)

Scientist entrepreneur

David is a scientist entrepreneur who has invented and commercialised a number of technologies related to sustainable alternatives to pesticides and fertilisers, the latter substituting for nitrogen fertilisers in wheat, maize, soybean and potato. He invented the process to round-up transactions at point of sale PIN terminals, generating and disbursing >£1 million/year to UK charities through the Pennies Foundation that he founded. He is also a former Governor of the Surrey Borders NHS Trust, a founder Trustee of the Sustainable Nitrogen Foundation, Chair of the Wayland Chamber of Commerce and the Wayland Partnership in mid-Norfolk as well as a member of the Wayland Academy Committee. David leads for the Partnership and the Chamber on the development of the new Wayland business, community and leisure facility in Watton based around digital and creative media.

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