Innovation Management

How do governments support innovation?

Individual Research Exercise (2000 words, +/- 5%, excluding bibliography and any appendices).

Select a topic from the list below. Highlight a number of innovations within the field and research the factors affecting the innovation steps (these may include but are not limited to historical context, cultural factors, society need, organisational structures, project champions etc) and present your findings in a professional report. You should highlight where there is evidence of a managed approach to innovation. In particular you should comment on the potential for intellectual property protection. You should include a timeline. Do not get side-tracked with too much technical detail. The focus is on how a product or process innovation was managed. For guidance marks will be awarded as follows:

Style and Layout 10%
Summary Page 10%
Main content 60%
Conclusions 10%
Correct use of references 10%

Subjects is:

How do governments support innovation?

Report Presentation

You should produce a professional report, with a title page followed by a summary page (300 words max) and full referencing. It should be typed using 10/12 point font with 1.5 line spacing. Material must not simply be taken from the internet (or other sources) without correct referencing. On the summary page you must give the report total word count.

Guidelines on award of marks.

Mark
(%) Grade Comments
>80% A Work of the highest quality. Fully satisfying the assignment question as set in all areas. Some opportunity for very minor improvement but overall a professional piece of work.

70 to 79 A Again work of extremely good quality. Most areas of the highest order but with some opportunity for improvement in a few areas. Nonetheless a professional report.

60 to 69 B Work that is well above average. Some areas (such as presentation may be excellent) whilst the overall mark is brought down by less satisfactory work in other areas (eg referencing). The work does not have the consistency of high quality to warrant a mark in the A grade category.

50 to 59 C Average to above average quality work. It is likely that work with marks in this category have some serious flaws which bring down the overall mark. Most areas will have potential for some improvement.

45 to 49 D Work that is of below average quality. The report may be too brief, unstructured, badly written and/or presented. Most areas of the report will have serious flaws or have potential for vast improvement. Work in this category is often hurried or completed at 3.30am on the day of submission!

40 to 44 E Work that is only just satisfactory. Often reports with such low pass marks are let down by a lack of research or of report planning. All areas will be flawed and have potential for improvement. Students who achieve such low marks in a coursework only module assessment have missed the opportunity to put marks “in the bank”.

<40 F Poor quality work that is unsatisfactory in most areas and shows little or no evidence of understanding of the area or of application to the task. Marks of this level indicate that the student is not working at 2nd undergraduate level.

0 F Plagiarised work or work that has been done in collusion.