From the laboratory to the consumer: Innovation, supply chain, and adoption with applications to natural resources

Abstract

Significance Research on innovation has two strands: institutions undertaking innovation as a research and development process and companies commercializing innovative products. We combine these strands, analyzing a sequence going from an innovation supply chain to a product supply chain from laboratory to market. We argue that these supply chains are symbiotic, and the relationship between entities is affected by economic considerations. Our framework allows an understanding of how research, regulatory policies, and economic conditions affect the emergence of innovations, the creation of institutions (markets, firms, contracts) to carry out these innovations, and the diffusion of the resulting products. Our approach may improve the design of strategies to induce climate change and food security solutions.