20 challenges for innovation studies

The field of innovation studies is now approximately half a century old. The occasion has been marked by several studies looking back to identify the main contributions and advances we have made. In this paper, starting from a list of 20 major advances over the field’s history, I propose 20 challenges for coming decades. In 1900, David Hilbert compiled a list of 23 unsolved mathematical problems that had a profound influence on mathematicians over the 20th Century. The intention here is to prompt a debate among the innovation studies community on what are, or should be, the key challenges for us, and on what sort of field we aspire to be.