OECD Education Working Papers
This series is designed to make available to a wider readership selected studies drawing on the work of the OECD Directorate for Education. Authorship is usually collective, but principal writers are named. The papers are generally available only in their original language (English or French) with a short summary available in the other.
- ISSN: 19939019 (online)
- https://doi.org/10.1787/19939019
Business-Driven Innovation: Is it Making a Difference in Education?
An Analysis of Educational Patents
This paper analyses business-driven innovation in education by looking at education-related patents. It
first draws a picture of the challenges for innovation in the formal education sector, which suffers from a
poor knowledge ecology: science is hardly linked to core teaching and administrative practices. It then
turns to a common indicator of innovation: patents. In the case of education, patents typically cover
educational tools. An analysis of education-related patents over the past 20 years shows a clear rise in the
production of highly innovative educational technologies by businesses, typically building on advances in
information and communication technology. While this increase in educational innovations may present
new opportunities for the formal education sector, the emerging tool industry currently targets the nonformal
education rather than the formal education system. We shortly discuss why business entrepreneurs
may be less interested in the market of formal education.
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