Into the valley of death: research to innovation

The phase between research and successful innovation is known as the valley of death. Increasingly, researchers from the pharmaceutical industry and academia are working together, often encouraged by governments, to cross this 'valley' as they seek to bring basic research to the market. This is consistent with newer models of innovation policy that stress interaction between the different agents across the innovation process. Here, we examine this interaction in the UK, the EU and the USA using several specific examples, suggesting that cooperation is still far from perfect and that the return for academia on its research investment is relatively small. Countries are also beginning to use research as a tool of industrial economic policy.