EBME Forums Forums Management Medical Equipment Management Can you teach Innovation?

It came as a surprise to me really to learn that some of the largest University Hospital Trusts in the UK have no involvement whatsoever in innovation/R&D in terms of MPCE Departments, I guess most are so busy with operational matters, R&D takes a back seat, which is regrettable, the benefits activity of this nature brings are massive

People often ask me whether innovation can be taught. In terms of breakthrough science. the truth is, it’s a lot like football in the Bill Shankly era: people talk about luck, talent, or inspiration, but the real engine is work. Shankly used to say that the harder he worked, the luckier he seemed to get — and innovation follows exactly the same pattern.

The breakthroughs don’t come from waiting for a spark. They come from pushing deeper into the problem, stripping away noise, understanding the mechanism underneath, and refusing to stop until the physics lines up. When you work like that, “luck” isn’t luck at all. It’s the natural by-product of discipline, graft, and clarity.

So yes, you can teach innovation — not as a mystical gift, but as a way of working. Teach people to frame problems properly, to think in systems, to analyse mechanisms, and to iterate with purpose, and they’ll find that the harder they work, the more “innovative” they become.

WRT innovation, how are things in your Trusts or Medical Device Manufacturing or Service organisations , I think I will seek option and views from the Southern Clinical Engineering Network - many proactive and enthusiastic folkhere,

Isn't that what university is supposed to do (or did)?

Anyway, I'm sure that you'll remember from your own Service to the Queen, that, given enough time and resources, you can teach anyone to do anything.

But, to my mind, it is more useful to accurately determine what it is you're trying to achieve ... and then ascertain whether that aim justifies the calculated effort involved in getting there.

In short, innovation may not be the answer. But I'll grant you that "discipline, graft, and clarity" could well be.

Geoff —I'm not sure, I think we often miss the point. treating innovation as if it’s some optional extra that sits on top of “discipline, graft, and clarity”, when in reality those behaviours are the engine of innovation itself. Universities could be seen factories for “inspiration”; they were built to teach the exact cognitive disciplines that make innovation inevitable — problem framing, systems thinking, mechanism analysis, and purposeful iteration. That is innovation.

Your point about “given enough time and resources you can teach anyone anything” actually reinforces this: if you can teach discipline, clarity, and structured reasoning, then you can teach the very architecture that produces innovative outcomes. Very important outcomes.

And I guess the idea that “innovation may not be the answer” only shows a misunderstanding of what innovation actually is — it isn’t a shiny end product, it’s the disciplined thinking that prevents wasted effort and clarifies aims in the first place.

So yes, universities are supposed to do this, and when they don’t, that’s a failure of execution, not a limitation of the concept. The argument you made drifts a little off target — it misses somewhat the system in which the target sits.