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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Open Access Publishing as an Incorporator of Research and Innovation Cycle

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Even though basic research doesn’t often result in immediately usable products, it plays an essential role in technological innovations, as it has formed the basis for many groundbreaking advances in product development over the decades. For instance, Maxwell’s 19 century research into electricity and magnetic fields (Copeland, 2000) has resulted in a vast array of products that many of us take for granted in modern daily life. And Turing’s intuitive consideration of the way mathematicians think paved the way for the development of computers (Friedel, 2002) and eventually to many digital technologies. A multitude of similar examples that demonstrate the connection between ideas emerging from basic research to product development abound. On the other hand, it is also common that product design processes provoke new directions and developments in basic research. In the 1860s, Pasteur investigated why some local vintners’ wines were spoiling and opened a new frontier on the understanding of how microbes caused disease (de Kruif, 1926/2002) and, more importantly, on the development of treatments. Practical needs also led to the invention of logarithms that have become a vital element of contemporary mathematical thinking. This reciprocal connection between new ideas in basic research and product development can be called an innovation cycle, expressing the existent and constant interaction. New ideas in one area generate more or different ideas not just on that topic or in that area but also more widely. The expression of new needs or solutions set challenges for active thinkers, who then take the insights and potentialities from one sector of society or business to another. The innovation cycle is an important phenomenon in modern society. Many innovations quickly find their way into practical life. In reality, however, the innovation cycle doesn’t always move very fast. The Arpanet (the forerunner of today’s Internet) was introduced in 1969 (Zakon, 2005), but it didn’t become an essential tool for worldwide business, communication, and entertainment for another 25-30 years. Indeed, many ideas that were relevant to the development of the Internet were surfaced decades before the global system became commonplace (Zakon, 2005). Yet, once the structure became known and accepted, it