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Alternative Energy Systems

This area is based on the pioneering work of Lakis Kaounides in new materials science, technology strategy and R&D management, and of Joseph Lampel on emerging industries. It continues with important new research into sustainable energy technologies, with a focus on fuel cells and the evolving hydrogen economy.

UKERC Carbon Crucible Programme Awards

Dr Sharon Lin has been awarded two grants totalling £29,400 under the UK Energy Research Centre’s Carbon Crucible grant programme.

Financial vs. Carbon (2009-10, £12,900). Researchers: Sharon Lin, with Heriot-Watt University, Imperial College and Eon Energy

A study of the monetary and carbon payback from photovoltaic systems, the research will develop a monetary, energy, carbon and policy life cycle approach for the comparison of current and emerging photovoltaic (PV) energy technologies.

Standard Carbon Metrics (2009-10, £16,500). Researchers: Sharon Lin, with Edinburgh and Teeside Universities

The study will produce standard carbon metrics for the public and private sectors. This will go beyond standard economic indicators, such as GDP, to integrate environmental dimensions, thus reflecting a truer picture of progress.

The ‘uncertain middle’: the role of demonstration projects and trials in influencing success in sustainable innovation - ESRC/AIM

(2007-10) £350,216. Principal Investigator: Chris Hendry; Researchers: Paul Harborne & Jim Brown - .

This is an international study of field trials and demonstration projects involving radical, technological innovation. It focuses on three energy technologies - fuel cells, wind, and photo-voltaics (PV) - which are at different stages of commercialisation for electricity generation for industrial, commercial, leisure and residential use. The project will compare approaches in the use of demonstrations and trials in North America, Europe and Japan.

Speed and effectiveness in innovation is affected by what goes on inside a firm and by the environment in which innovation takes place. While there has been attention to the ‘front end’ of innovation, there has been relatively little focus on the ‘uncertain middle’, when new technologies and products emerge from the laboratory for testing in the real world. Demonstrations and trials help firms solve technical problems and explore market opportunities, including customer attitudes and potential barriers.

Energy is one of the most significant and vulnerable resources in society. There is great pressure because of climate change and increasingly scarce supplies, for energy production to shift towards sources that are more environmentally and socially sustainable. Innovating in energy systems, however, is particularly complex and difficult because of established technology, firms with large investments in the present system, and incentives, regulation and consumer behaviour which maintain things as they are. Producers, governments and consumers are all conservative to varying degrees. Demonstration and trials can play an important role in helping emerging energy technologies gain a foothold where they are not immediately exposed to market pressures and can begin to change these influences.

Such projects have played a significant role in advancing renewable technologies in Germany, Japan and the USA, and have been well-funded by the State. This is less true, however, of the UK, where government policy has traditionally been reluctant to support firms through the ‘uncertain middle’ phase of innovation with publicly-funded trials. However, the UK has recently established a number of new ‘Research, Development and Demonstration’ grant-aided programmes in the low carbon and renewable energy field, and the EU also has major plans to develop and promote renewable energy. This project will create better understanding of the opportunities these create for accelerating innovation, and how to maximise their impact through good management, accompanying measures, and follow-on activities.

Using published records, we will first build a comprehensive database of demonstration and trials for fuel cells, wind, and photo-voltaics in the major countries exploiting these. We will then review a sample for each technology in Europe, USA and Japan, and through interviews with companies and others develop case studies of successful and less successful programmes. We know, for instance, that some countries have achieved major growth in installations in wind, fuel cells and photo-voltaics, and we will want to know what part demonstration and trials have played in this, what other policies have been effective, and what other external factors have affected success. At the same time, we will explore how companies engaged in these projects have managed them – for example, what knowledge and skills they bring, their use of team-working and how they control new product development, and how they work with partners. All of these affect how successful they are in acquiring knowledge and acting on it before, during and after trials.

The result will be an evaluation of demonstration projects and trials at both the company and programme level, with a clearer view of their role within the innovation process. This will be valuable to managers and policy makers for making effective use of trials, as a general instrument in improving innovation, and in accelerating the development and adoption of sustainable technologies.

The grant will also provide studentships for two new doctoral students to work on themes associated with the main project - 'The role and impact of partnering within demonstration projects and field trials', and 'The impact of demonstration projects and field trials on the development of small-scale CHP systems'.

Innovation Barriers to Growth in High-Technology SMEs: The Role of Absorptive Capacity

(2006-07) £20,418. Researchers: Chris Hendry, Paul Harborne, James Brown, and University of Cambridge Centre for Business Research.

The Council for Science and Technology has commissioned this joint project to investigate ‘how high-technology SMEs identify knowledge gaps during product development, how they resolve these, and how they make effective commercial use of their scientific knowledge’. The Council advises the UK government on policy and support for science-based SMEs. The project will develop a series of case studies and a report which assesses government policy in terms of how such companies learn and grow.

The research will target early-stage firms that need further significant R&D before they have a viable product. The Cass research will focus on the UK fuel cell industry, where there are a number of such start-ups still developing their capabilities and products in early market applications. As a sector at a critical stage of development with acknowledged significant medium- and long-term prospects, these cases are likely to provide insights into the imperatives of absorbing knowledge in high-technology SMEs.

The project builds on our research into the fuel cell sector in the UK, Germany, USA and Japan over the past four years. It will therefore contribute not only to policy towards high-technology SMEs in general, but is a further opportunity to influence attitudes and policy towards a sector that has important worldwide significance for reducing carbon emissions (and hence climate change) and for energy security

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The Development and Diffusion of Fuel Cell Technology as a Disruptive Innovation

(2002-2005) £228,019. Researchers: Chris Hendry, Paul Harbourne, Dinos Arcoumanis (Dean of Engineering), James Brown and Talal Ous

This project is funded under the ESRC Sustainable Technologies Programme, which is an integral part of the UK's Sustainable Technologies Initiative. The Programme seeks to analyse what makes technologies sustainable, to assess the roles technological and behavioural change can play in achieving more sustainable futures, and to reveal the social and economic processes that foster or inhibit innovation for sustainable development. STP is a five-year £3 million programme launched in January 2002, and the City fuel cell technology project is one of six commissioned in the first round. For further details of the programme see www.sustainabletechnologies.ac.uk

Fuel cells, which use hydrogen and oxygen to produce electricity, are an attractive resource-efficient energy source, with a range of applications in the automotive industry, portable electronics, domestic heating, and power generation. While there are many technical problems to be overcome, there are also wider system issues that mark out fuel cell technology as a case of radical, disruptive innovation. This can be seen as a general feature of sustainable technologies, since they often have to confront entrenched industry and consumer interests, as well as needing to develop new forms of organisation. The research studies the key factors affecting the development, adoption and use of fuel cell technology, through the interaction of company innovation processes and system drivers (including government policy), and develops lessons to optimise its take-up. In doing so, it addresses the following key questions:


The research develops a picture of drivers and barriers through interviews with key players and interest groups in the industry, and case studies featuring innovating companies in fuel cell technology in the automotive, heating/power and portable electronics sectors, in the UK, Germany, North America and Japan. The project is supported by one of the world's leading firms in fuel cell development, Johnson Matthey.

The research provides lessons for company practice and government policy to encourage the development and adoption of fuel cells - including the impact of alternative regulatory regimes, new ways of thinking about radical innovation, and how to build momentum in the adoption of sustainable technologies. Overall, the result is a better understanding of the dynamics of large-scale change for innovation in sustainable technologies, and better models to guide the process.

For a review of key findings and publications, see: http://www.esrcsocietytoday.ac.uk/ESRCInfoCentre

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R&D competition and cooperation in high technology: a theoretical and empirical analysis of pharmaceuticals and biotechnology vs computers and optical communications

Researcher: Lakis Kaounides (1999-2002). (Currently, Director of Technology and Innovation, Department of Materials, Queen Mary, University of London.)

Kaounides, L. (2002). Nanotechnology and global competition in the 21st century.

Kaounides, L. and Granger, R. (2002), ‘The core technological and organisational competencies of the corporation revisited’, City University Business School.

Kaounides, L (2000), ‘New technologies and International Business in the 21st century: technological convergence, networks, and global competition’ in C.J. Millar, R. Grant and C.J. Choi (Eds), International Business: Emerging Issues and Emerging Markets, McMillan Press, 130-155.

Kaounides, L. (1999), ‘Scientific and Technological Advance and Competitiveness in the Global Economy', International Studies in Management and Organisations, Special Issue, Spring, 29, 1, 53-79.

Kaounides, L. (1995). Advanced Materials: Corporate Strategies for Competitive Advantage. Management Report, The Financial Times. 315pp.

Kaounides, L. (1995). Advanced Materials in High Technology and World Class Manufacturing: The Materials Revolution and the Challenge to World Industry in the l990s. Advanced materials technology series, No.1, UNIDO, Vienna, Austria. 80pp.

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Studies in Emerging Industries

(1999-2001). Researcher: Joe Lampel.

This project was concerned with the role of socio-cognitive processes in industry emergence through examples from nanotechnology, fuel cells, bio-informatics, and photovoltaics. Socio-cognitive models of industry emergence focus on the interaction between collective action and cognition in the pre-commercial phase. Collective action during this phase mobilizes resources by building on communal and social affiliation within clusters, energised by visions of future technological perfectibility. This perspective also highlights the role of industry visionaries - individuals who through foresight and persuasion exercise a strong influence on an industry during its formative stage, usually by promulgating and communicating collective action frames.

Lampel, J. (2001), ‘Show and Tell: Product Demonstrations and Path Creation of Technological Change’, in R. Garud and P. Karnøe (eds.), Path dependence and path creation. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Earlbaum, pp.303-328.

Lampel, J. and Shamsie, J. (2001), 'Betting On Technological Innovation: Towards A Competence-Based View of First Mover Advantage', in R. Sanchez and A. Heene (eds.), Advances in Applied Business Strategy. Research in Competence-Based Management, JAI Press, pp.165-185.

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Skill Needs in New Technology Industries

The Department for Education and Employment (1999). Researcher: Chris Hendry (with James Brown and Sally Woodward)

Hendry, C. (1999). New Technology Industries. Skills Task Force Research Paper 10, London: DfEE, 37pp.