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The IPC and AEE held five roundtable discussions on regional strategies to accelerate the transition to a lower-carbon energy economy in 2013-2014. The roundtables engaged utility executives, advanced energy companies and regulators. Studies were done for the following cities: San Antonio
Aspen
New York
Boston

IPC’s featured speakers, along with a panel of experts, interacted at a policy discussion. Jointly hosted by the MIT Industrial Performance Center and the Bipartisan Policy Center, this event continued the conversation of key areas presented in Richard Lester’s and David Hart’s book, Unlocking Energy Innovation: How America Can Build a Low-Cost, Low-Carbon Energy System.

However, while national policy is an essential component in reaching these objectives, so too is the innovation and policy development that is taking place at the regional level. Regions like New England and Silicon Valley are leading the world in the creation of new technologies and companies that serve regional, national and global markets.

The IPC hosted a New England regional energy summit in October, 2010 discussing the opportunities and challenges that face that region in growing the clean energy industry. The IPC is also working with leaders in Massachusetts in the biomanufacturing industry to understand how the region, a global leader in the industry, can maintain and further its innovative capacity in this area of advanced manufacturing.

Innovation on its own is not sufficient to achieve these economic benefits; to fully realize the economic gains associated with innovation, new products and services developed by American innovators must be taken up on a large scale within the U.S. economy, as well as in overseas markets.

Our examination of innovation strategies in these diverse business sectors has revealed two fundamental processes. One, analysis, or rational problem solving, dominates management and engineering practice. The other, interpretation, is not widely understood, or even recognized. Unlike problem solving, interpretation embraces and exploits ambiguity, the wellspring of creativity in the economy.

Brazil embarked over the last several years on a large-scale effort to address structural issues around building innovation capabilities with the country.

IPC researchers are at the forefront of research on globalization. The focus at the IPC has long been on bottom-up, qualitative, firm- and industry-level research, and as many industries have globalized, IPC researchers have followed.