Making history

Most evidence, though, is anecdotal. For instance, Chapman cites the example of a biofuel breakthrough inspired by the 50-year-old PhD paper of an industry reasearcher’s former university colleague. However, he is hopeful that the study – the first empirical study of its kind – will throw up plenty of good examples.

The research councils spend hundreds of millions of pounds a year on new research, so it would be interesting to find out the value of old research,

Adrian Chapman, Oakdene Hollins

If the study is able to determine that this is a process that happens fairly regularly, the next step, according to Chapman, will be to attempt to put some value on this form of historical technology transfer. If his group can achieve this, he hopes it could lead to a fundamental revaluation of historic research and a trawl of engineering’s pre-digital age as a valuable step in the innovation process.