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Back to Faculty/Researchers
Prof. Richard K Lester
Interim Vice President of Climate (VPC)
Japan Steel Industry Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering
Primary DLC
Office of the Provost
MIT Room:
4-104
(617) 253-7704
rklester@mit.edu
https://sites-mit-edu.ezproxy.canberra.edu.au/rklester/
Assistant
David Wright
(617) 253-6495
djwright@mit.edu
Areas of Interest and Expertise
Industrial Productivity and Performance
Innovation and Creativity
Management of Innovation
Local Innovation Systems
Energy Systems Innovation and Policy
China Energy Program
Future of Nuclear Power
Research Summary
Professor Lester’s research is concerned with innovation strategy and management, with a frequent focus on the energy and manufacturing sectors. He is widely known for his work on local, regional, and national systems of innovation, and he has led major studies of national and regional competitiveness and innovation performance commissioned by governments and industry groups around the world. He is the founding director and faculty chair of the MIT Industrial Performance Center.
His research addresses two broad topics: the organization and management of systems of innovation; and the public and private management of energy technologies.
(*) Energy Systems Innovation and Policy -- Lester's long-standing interest is in the technological development of the energy sector. Much of my research and teaching over the years has focused on different aspects of this subject. This research is currently concentrated in three areas: (1) Accelerating U.S. Energy Innovation; (2) The Future of Nuclear Power; (3) China Energy Program
(*) Innovation and Creativity -- Pressures for shorter product development cycles, lower project costs, and greater product variety have once again brought to the fore an old problem: how to organize product design and development. The central issue is, as it has always been, the ‘creative spirit’ and the way it seems to conflict with the efficient management of virtually every other aspect of the business. There is a well-developed set of tools for managing other business functions, but creativity is a ‘black box’. We need to open up the black box and see what is inside. At the Industrial Performance Center we have been studying product and service design and development in a variety of sectors in an attempt to find out what such a theory might look like and how it could actually be used. This research has revealed two fundamental processes that are central to innovation. One, rational problem-solving, is well understood and dominates management and engineering practice and economic policymaking. The other, which we refer to as interpretation, is much less well understood, but is the source of much creative output. These two processes are radically different from each other in almost every respect, and require vastly different managerial approaches, yet both are needed to sustain the creative output of both individual firms and entire economies. One area of current research focuses on corporate strategies for preventing interpretive processes from being crowded out by the insistent demands of problem solving, and for combining the two processes effectively within the same organization. A second strand of research focuses on the implications for public policy of the need to cultivate interpretive spaces to boost the innovative performance of national economies.
(*) Local Innovation Systems -- The vigor and dynamism of local economies depends on the ability of local firms to adapt to changing markets and technologies by continually introducing commercially viable products, services, and production processes – that is, by innovating successfully. Not all local economies adapt with equal success. The outcome depends on the capabilities of local firms to take up new technological and market knowledge and to apply it effectively. In the Local Innovation Systems Project at the IPC we are investigating the contributions made by local universities to those capabilities. We are carrying out longitudinal, comparative case studies of innovation-enabled transformations in different industries in multiple locations around the world. The locations include both technologically sophisticated and economically less-favored regions. The sectors include both mature and new industries. Some of the locations are home to first-tier universities, some to second-tier universities, and some to no universities at all. A key finding is that the university role in local innovation processes depends on what kind of industrial transformation is occurring in the local economy. New industry formation, industry transplantation, industry diversification, and industry upgrading are each associated with a different pattern of technology take-up and with a different set of university contributions. A current research focus is to extend our analytical framework, which emerged from our studies in advanced economies, to the problem of designing and implementing economic development strategies for universities in emerging economies.
Recent Work
Projects
August 27, 2015
Accelerating Innovation in Brazil
Principal Investigator
Richard Lester
September 20, 2011
Nuclear Energy Focus Area: The Future of Nuclear Power
Principal Investigator
Richard Lester
September 20, 2011
Accelerating U.S. Energy Innovation
Principal Investigator
Richard Lester
September 20, 2011
Globalization Metrics and Measurements
Principal Investigator
Richard Lester
September 20, 2011
Regional Innovation Project
Principal Investigator
Richard Lester
September 20, 2011
Innovation and Creativity
Principal Investigator
Richard Lester
May 18, 2009
Energy Innovation Project
Principal Investigator
Richard Lester
July 8, 2008
The Development of Innovative Industries and the Role of Public Research Institutions: The Case of Renewable Energy
Principal Investigator
Richard Lester
July 17, 2007
Globalization, Jobs and Skills
Principal Investigator
Richard Lester
July 17, 2007
Interpretive Innovation Project
Principal Investigator
Richard Lester
July 17, 2007
Global Value Chains (GVC) Initiative
Principal Investigator
Richard Lester
December 2, 2004
Local Innovation Systems (LIS) Project
Principal Investigator
Richard Lester
Books
Publication date:
November 4, 2011
Books
David M. Hart,
Prof. Richard K Lester
Unlocking Energy Innovation: How America Can Build a Low-Cost, Low-Carbon Energy System
Video
RD-11.15-16.2022-Lester
November 15, 2022
Conference Video
Duration: 17:18
Show more
Richard Lester
Associate Provost for International Activities
Japan Steel Industry Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering, MIT International Activities
9.20.22-Sustainability-Richard-Lester
September 20, 2022
Conference Video
Duration: 19:16
Show more
Richard Lester
Japan Steel Industry Professor
Associate Provost
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