Neil Lee

This course is compulsory for students on the MSc in Innovation Policy. 

A good background in economics, geography, public policy, management, or related fields.

This course is concerned with both the theoretical underpinnings and practical implementation of innovation policies, with a focus on the state-of-the-art in innovation policy research and practice. 

Each week would consider a different topic. Half of these would be given by different LSE academics, drawing on their most advanced policy focused research. The other half would be given by invited speakers from policy, business, and academia. Topics would vary by year, but might include issues such as Innovation Missions, the Fourth Industrial Revolution, Emerging Technologies, Digital Technologies and Work-from-Home, Innovation Ecosystems, and Innovation Finance. 

15 hours of lectures and 15 hours of workshops in the WT. 1 hour of lectures in the ST.

The course will offer 10 lectures of 1.5 hours each in the WT. Each of these will be immediately followed by workshops of 1.5 hours each which discuss the lecture material. We have also scheduled an extra session in ST to allow students to ask questions and discuss their summative assessment.

We will build up towards the course assessment gradually – with seminar exercises which mimic lecture questions, and other forms of summative assessment. The aim is to develop student’s abilities gradually. One of our key seminar activities would be the discussion and comparison of potential essay structures.

We would share a detailed reading list with students at the start of the course - this would be updated based on the curriculum of that year.

Core readings would include: 

• Lee, N. (2024). Innovation for the masses: how to share the benefits of the high-tech economy. Univ of California Press.
• Gruber, J., & Johnson, S. (2019). Jump-starting America: How breakthrough science can revive economic growth and the American dream. Hachette UK.
• Bloom, N., Van Reenen, J., & Williams, H. (2019). A toolkit of policies to promote innovation. Journal of economic perspectives, 33(3), 163-184.
• Crescenzi, R., Iammarino, S., Ioramashvili, C., Rodríguez-Pose, A., & Storper, M. (2020). The geography of innovation and development: global spread and local hotspots.
• Breznitz, D. (2007). Innovation and the state: Political choice and strategies for growth in Israel, Taiwan, and Ireland. Yale University Press.

Project (100%, 4000 words) in the ST.

The assessment would be a policy project. Our students will learn both theoretical and applied material in innovation policy. This project would give them the chance to show this understanding, evaluate existing policy, and create new forms of policy. To do this, they would choose an existing policy document, critically evaluate it on the basis of the existing literature, and identify improvements which could be made.