The new inventors: how users are changing the rules of innovation

Abstract

User-led innovation - where users play an active part in the development of new or improved products and services - is exploding: proliferating digital technologies mean that we're all potential innovators now. New firms based on user-led innovation are being sold for hundreds of millions of dollars only a few years after being founded. Policymakers have remain somewhat sceptical about the importance of user-led innovation. But if the UK is to harness this new wave of invention and creativity, it needs to develop world-leading policy in support of user-led innovation. This means being more aware of the impact of new legislation on user-led innovation, and establishing a forum to ensure that policy makers hear directly from these new inventors.