Managing Innovation

Joe Tidd is a physicist with subsequent degrees in technology policy and business administration. He is Professor of Technology and Innovation Management and Director of Studies at SPRU (Science & Technology Policy Research), University of Sussex, UK, and Visiting Professor at University College London, Copenhagen Business School and the Rotterdam School of Management. He was previously Head of the Management of Innovation Specialization and Director of the Executive MBA Programme at Imperial College, University of London.
He has worked as policy adviser to the CBI (Confederation of British Industry), responsible for industrial innovation and advanced technologies, where he developed and launched the annual CBI Innovation Trends Survey, and presented expert evidence to three Select Committee Enquiries held by the House of Commons and House of Lords. He was a researcher for the five-year, $5 million International Motor Vehicle Program organised by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the USA, and has worked on research and consultancy projects on technology and innovation management for consultants Arthur D. Little, CAP Gemini and McKinsey, and numerous technology-based firms, including American Express Technology, Applied Materials, ASML, BOC Edwards, BT, Marconi, National Power, NKT, Nortel Networks and Petrobras.
He is the winner of the Price Waterhouse Urwick Medal for contribution to management teaching and research, and the Epton Prize from the R&D Society. He has written five books and more than 70 papers on the management of technology and innovation, the most recent being Service Innovation: Organizational responses to technological opportunities and market imperatives (with Frank Hull), Imperial College Press, 2003, and is Managing Editor of the International Journal of Innovation Management.
Contact: J.Tidd@sussex.ac.uk

John Bessant is Professor of Innovation Management at the School of Management, Cranfield University. He also holds a Fellowship of the Advanced Institute for Management Research which he was awarded in 2003. He graduated from Aston University with a degree in Chemical Engineering in 1975 and later obtained a Ph.D. for work on innovation within the chemical industry. After a spell in industry he took up full-time research and consultancy in the field of technology and innovation management working at Aston's Technology Policy Unit, the Science Policy Research Unit at Sussex University and at Brighton University where he held the Chair in Technology Management from 1987 to 2002.
Prior to joining the faculty at Cranfield, John was Director of Brighton University's Centre for Research in Innovation Management which he set up in 1987. He oversaw its development into a research institute with a staff of 30 people working on around 50 projects for public and private sponsors in the field of effective innovation management.
He is an Honorary Professor at SPRU, Sussex University and a Visiting Fellow at several UK and international universities. He served on the Business and Management panel of the 2001 Research Assessment Exercise. In 2003 he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy of Management.
His areas of research interest include the management of discontinuous innovation, strategies for developing high involvement innovation and enabling effective inter-firm collaboration and learning in product and process innovation. He is the author of 20 books and many articles on the topic and has lectured and consulted widely around the world. He has acted as advisor to various national governments and to international bodies including the United Nations, The World Bank and the OECD.
Contact: john.bessant@cranfield.ac.uk