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Industrial R&D in 2008--revisiting the 1998 predictions: the past decade has seen encouraging changes in the way researchers, technology intelligence, technical work, and the innovation process are managed in IRI firms. And most technology leaders believe that R&D in their firms has become more effective.

Article Excerpt
In the mid-1990s, the Industrial Research Institute (Research-Technology Management's publisher) undertook several efforts to identify anticipated changes in industrial R&D and the technological innovation process during the next 10 years. One of these initiatives, at IRI's 1998 annual meeting, was to develop ideas for action to improve management practices in four key areas of the industrial laboratory of 2008. These areas were people, data acquisition and computational capabilities, technology intelligence, and the innovation process. Workshops on each of these topics were held during the meeting and the ideas offered in those workshops were captured in my paper, "Industrial R&D in 2008," published in RTM, November-December 1998, pp. 19-24.

The common themes of the changes predicted for the laboratory of 2008 were that: 1) information technology would have a profound impact on the way R&D is conducted; 2) teams would be the norm, but the need for individual ideas and creativity would be more important than ever; 3) researchers would need to be even more adaptable to change and constantly enhancing their skills through knowledge-based programs; 4) the intellectual capacity of the organization would grow to compete in an intensely competitive global marketplace and technical intelligence would be collected, protected and applied by the entire organization; and 5) the innovation system would be seamless throughout the organization, driven by a vision of where the corporation wants to go, nurtured with a strategy of how it wants to get there, and managed by people with a solid understanding of technology as well as business. It was concluded that the differences between 1998 and 2008 would be quite dramatic because information technology would accelerate the rate of change in R&D organizations. Thus, management, and indeed leadership, of the forthcoming changes would be a major challenge for the industrial R&D enterprise.

In 2007, the editor of RTM suggested that I develop a sequel to the earlier paper describing whether or not the changes predicted in 1998 were actually implemented. In the meantime, IRI initiated a new study of the laboratory of the future, in cooperation with the Center for Innovation Management Studies (CIMS), with support from the National Science Foundation. This forward-looking study will consider how to lay the groundwork now for managing innovation 20 years in the future.

The best way to obtain an understanding of whether or not the ideas had been implemented was to ask IRI voting representatives. Thus, a brief survey was...