Business-driven innovation in education

Innovation should offer the education sector the means to close the productivity gap by disseminating new tools as well as new practices, organisations and technology. This chapter considers why educational scientific research has done little to create a body of practical technical teaching know-how or improve practices in the classroom. It then uses patent data to analyse the state of technical innovation in the educational support market, and identifies the emergence of a specialised educational tools industry which may help to disseminate the results of scientific research into education. Although there are barriers to small innovative firms in the educational market, and patents can have a damaging effect on innovation within the classroom, it appears that the most promising markets for new educational tools lie outside the public school system – in tertiary education, corporate training and individuals undertaking lifelong learning.