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Universities have a synthetic style for radical innovation but an inappropriate administrative culture. Science parks, which are supposed to have such entrepreneurial culture, instead lack an appropriate synthetic style. Our answer is to combine appropriate styles and cultures into a new arena. A modified-systems approach, based on the suggested principles, should, however, be structurally tested and compared with the current science-park model.

A fundamental discussion is lacking in the current document on U.S innovation policy from the National Research Council [1] of how invalid innovation styles and business cultures in different combinations discriminates innovation in science and industry. With credit to the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, we redefine innovation as similar to a research process and argue for improvements in the innovation literature to avoid poor results and failed innovation in the future; i.e. the innovation paradox. A critical review of the U.S. innovation policy document originates from our own university-based research and innovation in the occupational safety and health area, which is an area where both research and industry have failed thus far. Our article includes both proposals for a revised national mission based on Kant, as well as examples of how investment in research and innovation can translate and transform innovation ideas into commercial products in networks and eco-systems; and also how collaborative channels might be opened between independent inventors and universities. Our findings are important for both scientists and politicians, as well as for individuals - in industry and in society - who want to commercialize inventions.

The rationale behind our approach was that product innovations in occupational health and safety originate from radical innovation processes where ideas are tested naturally before any rational decisions are made. Our thesis therefore was that an open and subsidized radical innovation arena might counteract today's development imperfections and also be profitable to the society as a whole. In this study we critically scrutinized the implementation of such a publically open arena in the Swedish construction industry, which is an area with large costs for accidents and injuries. We used a two-step action research approach in order to compare the efficiency of a general arena (Innovation Stockholm) with a specialised health and safety arena, given the same radical supporting style and entrepreneurial culture. Our results confirmed our thesis: both arenas produced successful innovations and were profitable to the society as a whole. The specialised arena even doubled the efficiency for an idea to be in the market after 2 years: from 0.1 ideas to 0.25 ideas. In a general perspective we believe that our findings can contribute to the discussion on the “Open innovation” concept and how to reorganize the established “Science Park” innovation model.