The idea that scientific discovery and technical invention can work in synergy is evoked by a number of major organisations and some great scientific ventures. For instance, the discovery of the transistor by Shockley, Bardeen, and Brattain at Bell Labs (Nobel Prize, 1956) suggests that discovery and invention can occur simultaneously. However, two models continue to dominate the discourse on the relationship between science and socio-economic impact:
- The linear model, constantly criticised but omnipresent in public policy since Vannevar Bush’s “Science, The Endless Frontier” (1945), advocates a sequential logic that favours the production of scientific knowledge, potentially at the expense of socio-economic impact.
- The problem-oriented model describes a resolutive science aimed at solving industrial problems, thereby prioritising the production of technical knowledge over scientific discoveries.
We might feel trapped in an apparent opposition: either the scientist works on their own questions, with industrial impact being secondary, or they address industrial questions, with scientific impact being secondary. Between the two, a tepid compromise based on the double constraint? This reasoning seems unstoppable. However, contemporary efforts by the engaged scholarship research community and breakthrough publications by Narayanamurti and colleagues (e.g., Narayanamurti and Odumosu, 2016) have paved the way for a ‘double impac’ model.
A theoretical detour
To move forward, my colleagues Quentin Plantec, Benoit Weil, and I at the Center of Management Science of Mines Paris – PSL, developed a model to represent the interaction between a science designer (interested in questions specific to their discipline and the advancement of universal knowledge) and an industrial designer (interested in the development of new products and services - another form of progress). We drew on various available building blocks - C-K theory (Hatchuel and Weil, 2003, 2009, 2013), multi-actor design models (Gillier et al., 2010), cognitive science research on fixations in design (Agogué et al., 2012) and the role of independences in generative processes (Hatchuel et al., 2018).
This work led to the uncovering of a ‘double impact’ science-industry collaboration model with three unique features:
- Independence in explorative processes in the context of intensive knowledge exchange.
- Anomaly detection and new concept generation through (independent) knowledge exchange.
- Peer review validation for new concept generation.
We illustrate this model with the historical case of CRISPR-Cas9 (see Plantec et al., 2024): Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna's Nobel Prize-winning discovery as a basic science discovery, that will then give rise to applications - which is correct but incomplete! We show that part of the discovery of CRISPR-Cas9 is also the result of a curious exchange between the R&D department of an industrial company, Danisco, a specialist in lactic ferments, and scientists studying the immune adaptation mechanisms of lactic bacteria.
Quantitative approach of the magnitude of double impact phenomena
The theoretical detour and the empirical illustration demonstrate that science and industry can address distinct issues while intensely exchanging knowledge. This provides a solid ground for developing new measurement tools to uncover the magnitude of double-impact phenomena in situations traditionally associated with so-called “basic” or “applied” research.
A) Double impact in basic research: Can we identify all the Nobel Prize winners who might have benefited from “inspiring” contact with industry? Quentin Plantec conducted an exhaustive study of the 518 Nobel Prizes in Chemistry, Medicine and Physics from the prize’s inception in 1902 to 2016, including 89,311 associated scientific publications and 5,432 patents. The results of the study are surprising: not only is the double-impact phenomenon well and truly present (for 108 out of 517 Nobel Prizes), but it is also growing very significantly. In the last decade, one out of every two Nobel Prizes was achieved in association with industry (Plantec et al., 2021).
B) Double impact in applied research: Quentin Plantec and Benjamin Cabanes systematically coded a large sample of science-industry collaborations (650 theses from the 2015 cohort) to show that in theses based on science-industry collaboration, there is a degree of independence between industrial impact and scientific impact (patent registration does not reduce the number of publications). Moreover, the forms of collaboration closest to independent knowledge exchange led to a double impact, with industrial impact increasing scientific impact (patent registration coincides with more publications) (Plantec et al., 2023).
In an era of transitions, such a double-impact model seems more necessary than ever to support the efforts of invention and discovery. Far from any technological solutionism, double-impact research achieves this curious combination between an appetite for scientific discovery and the invention of new avenues of innovation that may be 'low tech' but are certainly 'high science'.
Pascal Le Masson
Professor at Mines Paris– PSL Research University, Chair of Bauhaus for Transitions, and Visiting Professor at the Service Research Center (CTF) at Karlstad University
References
Plantec, Q., Le Masson, P., et Weil, B. (2024). “Simultaneous Discovery–Invention in Corporate R&D: Lessons from the CRISPR Case.” European Management Review, n/a, (n/a), pp.
Plantec, Q., Le Masson, P., et Weil, B. (2022). “Nobel laurates and the role of the industry in the emergence of new scientific breakthroughs.” Academy of Management Conference, Seattle, United States.
Plantec, Q., Cabanes, B., le Masson, P., et Weil, B. (2023). “Early-career academic engagement in university–industry collaborative PhDs: Research orientation and project performance.” Research Policy, 52, (9), pp. 104856.
