What Is Innovation?

Abstract

Abstract Innovation, new or modified learned behaviour, is core to cultural evolution and fundamental to the success of humans. Innovations allow us to adapt to and change habitats, solve novel problems, and survive and flourish in diverse environments. Innovation also appears to be pervasive across the animal kingdom, with adaptive importance within a wide range of species. This chapter covers how innovation and its subcategories are defined and studied and its importance to both cultural and genetic evolution. The authors discuss the difficulty of creating useful, operational definitions that can link disparate fields, and controversies in the study of innovation, such as the independence of innovation from processes such as exploration and creativity. Considering costs and benefits to innovation, the authors address how individual, social, and ecological influences shape innovative propensities. The chapter finishes by discussing how cross-disciplinary research is key to resolving controversies within the field.