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From the steam engine to the smartphone, innovation is responsible for catapulting humankind into our modern prosperity. But the term has too often become a buzzword. Every government wants to encourage “innovation” but rarely seem to grasp what that means or the best way to do it. This often leads to lots of subsidies and “picking winners”.

If we’re going to not only tackle Covid-19, but also rebuild our economy afterwards, we need a far better understanding of this extremely important topic. That’s why we have assembled three of the world’s leading thinkers on innovation for the ASI’s next webinar. They will discuss the history of innovation, what enables it to spread, the burdens that limit innovation, and how we can accelerate innovation today.

Panellists:

Matthew Lesh is the Head of Research at the Adam Smith Institute and co-author of the ASI’s latest report, ‘Winning the Peace: How to safely unfreeze the economy and unleash British enterprise,’ as well as ‘Safeguarding Progress: The risks of internet regulation’. (Host)

Matt Ridley is a member of the House of Lords and author of numerous bestselling books including the ‘Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves’ (2010). His latest book is ‘How Innovation Works: And Why It Flourishes in Freedom’ (25 June) argues innovation is an incremental, bottom-up and fortuitous process.

Anton Howes is the head of innovation research at The Entrepreneurs Network and historian-in-residence at the Royal Society of Arts. He has just published 'Arts and Minds: How the Royal Society of Arts Changed a Nation' and is currently writing a book about why innovation accelerated in the eighteenth century in Britain.

Victoria Hewson is the Head of Regulatory Affairs at the Institute of Economic Affairs. She previously practiced for 12 years in technology law and financial services. Her most recent report was ‘Rules Britannia: Analysing Britain's regulatory burden’.