Business-Driven Innovation: Is it Making a Difference in Education?

This paper analyses business-driven innovation in education by looking at education-related patents. Itfirst draws a picture of the challenges for innovation in the formal education sector, which suffers from apoor knowledge ecology: science is hardly linked to core teaching and administrative practices. It thenturns to a common indicator of innovation: patents. In the case of education, patents typically covereducational tools. An analysis of education-related patents over the past 20 years shows a clear rise in theproduction of highly innovative educational technologies by businesses, typically building on advances ininformation and communication technology. While this increase in educational innovations may presentnew opportunities for the formal education sector, the emerging tool industry currently targets the nonformaleducation rather than the formal education system. We shortly discuss why business entrepreneursmay be less interested in the market of formal education.