Industrial Research Institute Envisions the Future of R&D

IRI Hosts Leading Minds in Innovation at Future Summit in San Jose, CA

ARLINGTON, VA (November 18, 2013) – The Industrial Research Institute (IRI), an association that brings together companies and laboratories from around the world to seek, share, learn and create best practices in research & development and innovation, hosts thought leaders from industry, academia and government at the 2013 Future Summit, taking place this week at The Fairmont San Jose. The Future Summit envisions the future of research and technology management through provocative presentations, speakers and research exploring how future trends, developments and events will impact the art and science of R&D management during the next 25 years.

The highlight of the Future Summit will be the release of the IRI 2038 research project that looks 25 years into the future to forecast what the R&D industry, and the world, will look like in 2038. The futures project shares four provocative, plausible scenarios describing four possible worlds: Three Roads to Innovation, The Death of Distance versus Megacities, Everything’s in Beta, and Africa Leapfrogs Developed Markets. Each scenario was crafted through a series of discovery and extrapolation phases that involved interviews with 38 R&D leaders around the world, exploration of weak signals and trends, and development of futures wheels highlighting four influential trends that will have a major impact on the future.

“As IRI’s 75th anniversary year comes to a close, we’re excited to envision what the future of innovation leadership will hold for the R&D industry, and the world, at the Future Summit,” said Ed Bernstein, IRI President. “From backcasting workshops based on our IRI 2038 project to interactive sessions featuring global participation and speakers from organizations such as NASA, Nike and PepsiCo – this event is filled with opportunities for our members to step into the future of innovation.”

Speakers at the Future Summit include Pete Worden, Director, NASA Ames; Paul Saffo, Managing Director of Foresight, Discern Analytics; Dan Cherian, General Manager, Sustainable Business & Innovation Lab, Nike; Dr. Ted Farrington, Sr. Director, PepsiCo Advanced Research, PepsiCo, Inc.; Marina Gorbis, Executive Director, Institute for the Future; and Dave Whorton, Founder & Managing Partner, Tugboat Ventures.

On Tuesday evening, IRI will present the annual Holland Award to recognize the best paper published in IRI’s Research-Technology Management journal in the previous year. The winning paper must meet the stringent criteria of significance to the field of R&D, technology and innovation management; originality of new management concepts; and excellence in clarity of presentation. The 2013 Maurice Holland Award winners are Bill Crandal, Principal, Clarify LLC; Paul Henderson, Managing Director, Clarify LLC; Alan MacCormack, Adjunct Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School; and Peter Toft, Director of Engineering, Hewlett-Packard’s Public Cloud. Their article, “Do You Need a New Product Development Strategy? Aligning Process with Context,” was published in the Jan-Feb 2012 issue of RTM.

In addition, on Wednesday, November 20, IRI will hold final voting for its first ever Tech Tournament, a competition to determine the most meaningful technological advancement in the past 75 years. The winner will be selected from more than twenty nominations from member companies including, Procter & Gamble, Xerox Corporation, Air Products, Eastman, and many others, and will be evaluated based on novelty and impact. Judges include Norm Augustine, Retired CEO, Lockheed Martin; Henry Chesbrough, Adjunct Professor & Executive Director, Center for Open Innovation, Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley; Dr. Mary L. Good, Dean, Donaghey College of Engineering and Information Technology, University of Arkansas at Little Rock; and Dean Kamen, Founder, DEKA Research & Development Corporation.

About the Industrial Research Institute (IRI)

The Industrial Research Institute (IRI) is an organization of 200+ industrial and service companies having a common interest in the effective management of technological innovation. IRI member companies span diverse industries and represent a substantial portion of our nation’s gross domestic product. IRI is the only cross-industry organization creating innovation leadership solutions and best practices in innovation management developed through collaborative knowledge creation. For more information, call 703-647-2580 or visit www.iriweb.org.