Within the University of Manchester (UK), Manchester business School hosts the Manchester Institute of innovation Research. The staff teach and publish on all aspects of innovation research, and themes include innovation and sustainability, technology strategy and innovation management and science and innovation policy, and many of the arguments treated are close to those broached by the Bassetti Foundation.

The institute runs both post doctorate and PhD programs as well as short courses for professionals. One example of a short course is entitled Evaluation of Science and Innovation policies. During this course the participants will learn about research techniques and the leading debates in evaluation in practice, but the most interesting section is entitled The Social Implications Of Research, and I believe that it is within this module that the problems of responsibility should come to the fore.

The institution has more than 50 research staff and interests cover a broad field of activities and topics. Amongst them we find Paul Cunningham, expert on knowledge transfer, Ian Miles, Professor of technological innovation and social change, Kieron Flanagan, lecturer in science and technology policy and management and possibly the most interesting of all from the foundation perspective Andrew Mc Meekin, whose profile states his interests as ‘sociological and management science approaches to analyse the nature of innovation processes’. I hope to publish a follow up interview with Prof Mc Meekin in March.

The website is simple but easy to use and offers an description of both current research projects and past examples, as well as seminar and publication history, well worthy of a browse. The recent publications section offers a link to Springer.com where you can read abstracts and download a series of articles authored by staff members, covering many different topics including nanotechnology and technology transfer.

The school is currently accepting applications for PhD in Innovation Research to begin in September 2011.

(photo: Food for the supermarkets by Nick Saltmarsh from Flickr)