Serendipity in research and innovation

Find out about this project, focusing on the desirability and feasibility of targeting research and exploring the idea of ‘serendipity’ in research.

About

Research often leads to unexpected, yet extremely valuable outcomes, but if the outcomes of research are impossible to predict, then surely the research itself is difficult (perhaps even impossible) to manage or direct towards specific social ends?

Using a prestigious €1.4m starting grant from the European Research Council, SPRU will build a new research team for a five-year interdisciplinary project.

Titled ‘Serendipity in Research and Innovation’ (SIRI), the project will be led by Dr Ohid Yaqub and will focus on the desirability and feasibility of targeting research and exploring the idea of ‘serendipity’ in research.

If uncertainty means research cannot be micro-managed, the pertinent issue becomes: can science be better managed in ways that enhance its social, political and economic value? Research may be uncertain, but it’s not random, and we know that industrial research and development managers fund research in areas where they expect returns, organising research to maximise its impact. With public policy, the scenario is slightly different, but there is not yet a body of evidence to draw on to support policy making.

The notion of serendipity has long been a central idea in the theory and practice of science policy, but there has been little research on its relative importance, and there is little evidence on its frequency, magnitude and factors. This new project will investigate whether science can be better managed in ways that enhance its social, political and economic value.

Dr Yaqub's work was the subject of a Nature Editorial piece (January 2018):

"By following the publications and patents that emerge from grants, [Yaqub] hopes to find out how often serendipity arises, and to understand its significance and nature... Given the paucity of existing evidence, even weak or partial observations could help policymakers to examine the most efficient way to fund research."

Methodology

The project will:

• Study biomedical research and its role in innovations such as new drugs, devices and vaccines
• Undertake a mix of fundamental basic research on the nature of serendipity and its measurement, history and influence on research policy, together with applied policy-focused research on issues of direct relevance to government policy makers, medical charities and industrial R&D managers
• Deploy mixed quantitative and qualitative methods to generate large scale evidence as well detailed cases studies
• Focus on developing theory and implications to inform future policy on research and innovation.

Partners and links

Dr Yaqub will be working with Dr Ismael Rafols (SPRU / INGENIO, Valencia) and Bhaven Sampat (Columbia, USA), and supported by an Advisory Council of Prof Jo Chataway (SPRU), Prof Ben Martin (SPRU), Richard Nelson (Columbia, USA), and Jonathan Adams (KCL and Digital Science).

Dr Yaqub said:

“I’m delighted to have been awarded such an amazing opportunity by the ERC to build a new team at SPRU and work on the Serendipity in Research and Innovation project over five years. The award is the culmination of recent scoping work, studies on vaccine innovation (for example here) and a long running stream of research by others at SPRU on biomedical research policy (for example here). I think the work will be important for both theory and policy, and I also think it might be quite fun too.”