Innovations is a peer-reviewed

Peer review

Peer review is a process of self-regulation by a profession or a process of evaluation involving qualified individuals within the relevant field. Peer review methods are employed to maintain standards, improve performance and provide credibility...

 academic journal

Academic journal

An academic journal is a peer-reviewed periodical in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. Academic journals serve as forums for the introduction and presentation for scrutiny of new research, and the critique of existing research...

 that focuses on entrepreneurial solutions to global challenges. It is published quarterly by the MIT Press

MIT Press

The MIT Press is a university press affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts .-History:...

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History

Innovations published its first issue in 2006. It complements existing policy journals such as Foreign Affairs

Foreign Affairs

Foreign Affairs is an American magazine and website on international relations and U.S. foreign policy published since 1922 by the Council on Foreign Relations six times annually...

by focusing on micro-level solutions, innovations, and entrepreneurship in a variety of organizational settings. The editors

Editor in chief

An editor-in-chief is a publication's primary editor, having final responsibility for the operations and policies. Additionally, the editor-in-chief is held accountable for delegating tasks to staff members as well as keeping up with the time it takes them to complete their task...

 are Philip E. Auerswald and Iqbal Z. Quadir.

Partnerships and special editions

The journal is jointly hosted at George Mason University

George Mason University

George Mason University is a public university based in unincorporated Fairfax County, Virginia, United States, south of and adjacent to the city of Fairfax. Additional campuses are located nearby in Arlington County, Prince William County, and Loudoun County...

's School of Public Policy, Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government

John F. Kennedy School of Government

The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University is a public policy and public administration school, and one of Harvard's graduate and professional schools...

, and MIT's Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship. Working with the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship

Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship

The Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship provides platforms at the country, regional and global levels to promote social entrepreneurship.- History :...

, Innovations has produced special editions for the 2008 annual meeting of the World Economic Forum and the 2008 World Economic Forum on the Middle East (in Arabic and English).

Structure of the journal

Each issue of Innovations consists of four sections:

• Lead essay. An authoritative figure addresses an issue relating to innovation, emphasizing interactions between technology and governance in a global context. Authors of lead essays have included Fazle Hasan Abed
  Fazle Hasan Abed
  Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, KCMG is a social worker with dual Bangladeshi/ British nationality and the founder and chairman of BRAC . For his outstanding contributions to social improvement, he has received the Ramon Magsaysay Award, the UNDP Mahbub Ul Haq Award and the inaugural Clinton Global Citizen...
  
  , Percy Barnevik
  Percy Barnevik
  Percy Nils Barnevik is a Swedish business executive, best known as CEO and later Chairman of Asea Brown Boveri 1988–2002, and for being the centre of a giant pension dispute that shook Sweden in 2003.-Background:...
  
  , Peter Eigen
  Peter Eigen
  Peter Eigen founded the Advisory Council of Transparency International , a non-governmental organization promoting transparency and accountability in international development since 1993...
  
  , William Foege
  William Foege
  William Herbert Foege M.D., M.P.H. is an American epidemiologist who is credited with "devising the global strategy that led to the eradication of smallpox in the late 1970s"....
  
  , John Holdren
  John Holdren
  John Paul Holdren is advisor to President Barack Obama for Science and Technology, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Co-Chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology...
  
  , Laurie Garrett
  Laurie Garrett
  Laurie Garrett is a Pulitzer prize-winning science journalist and writer of two bestselling books. She was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Journalism in 1996 for a series of works published in Newsday, chronicling the Ebola virus outbreak in Zaire.-Biographical information:Garrett...
  
  , R. Gopalakrishan (executive director of the Tata Group
  Tata Group
  Tata Group is an Indian multinational conglomerate company headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. Tata Group is one of the largest companies in India by market capitalization and revenue. It has interests in communications and information technology, engineering, materials, services, energy,...
  
  ), Mary Robinson
  Mary Robinson
  Mary Therese Winifred Robinson served as the seventh, and first female, President of Ireland from 1990 to 1997, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, from 1997 to 2002. She first rose to prominence as an academic, barrister, campaigner and member of the Irish Senate...
  
  , Diego Rodriguez (a partner at IDEO
  IDEO
  IDEO is an international design and innovation consultancy founded in Palo Alto, California, United States with other locations in San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Boston, London, Munich, Shanghai, and Singapore, as well as Mumbai, Seoul, and Tokyo. The company helps design products, services,...
  
  ), Klaus Schwab
  Klaus Schwab
  Klaus Martin Schwab is a German economist, best known as the founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum. His wife and former secretary, Hilde, co-founded the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship with him...
  
  , and Lawrence Summers
  Lawrence Summers
  Lawrence Henry Summers is an American economist. He served as the 71st United States Secretary of the Treasury from 1999 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. He was Director of the White House United States National Economic Council for President Barack Obama until November 2010.Summers is the...
  
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• Cases authored by innovators. Case narratives of innovations are authored either by, or in collaboration with, the innovators themselves. See further description below.
• Analysis. Research articles that emphasize links between practice and policy—alternately, micro and macro scales of analysis. The development of meaningful indicators of the impact of innovations is an area of editorial emphasis. Authors in the analysis section have included Bill Drayton
  Bill Drayton
  William "Bill" Drayton is a social entrepreneur. Born in 1943 in New York City, U.S. Drayton was named by US News & World Report as one of America's 25 Best Leaders in 2005...
  
  , Paul Farmer
  Paul Farmer
  Dr. Paul Edward Farmer is an American anthropologist and physician. He is currently the Kolokotrones University Professor at Harvard University, formerly the Presley Professor of Medical Anthropology in the Department of Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, an attending physician and Chief...
  
  , and Maria Otero
  Maria Otero
  María Otero was sworn in as United States Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs on August 10, 2009. She oversees and coordinates U.S. foreign policy on a variety of global issues, including democracy, human rights, and labor; environment, oceans, health and science, population,...
  
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• Perspectives on policy. Analyses of innovations by large scale public actors—national governments and transnational organizations—address both success and failure of policy, informed by both empirical evidence and the experience of policy innovators. The development of improved modes of governance to facilitate and support innovations is an area of editorial focus. Authors in the perspectives on policy section have included Susan Davis
  Susan Davis (BRAC USA)
  Susan Davis is a leader in international development and civil society innovation. She is a founder and current President & CEO of BRAC USA, an organization created to support BRAC, a pioneering development organization from Bangladesh, introduce its innovative development approach to improving the...
  
  , Francis Fukuyama
  Francis Fukuyama
  Yoshihiro Francis Fukuyama is an American political scientist, political economist, and author. He is a Senior Fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford. Before that he served as a professor and director of the International Development program at the School of...
  
  , Vinod Khosla
  Vinod Khosla
  Vinod Khosla is an Indian-born American venture capitalist and an influential personality in Silicon Valley....
  
  , Geoff Mulgan
  Geoff Mulgan
  Geoff Mulgan is Chief Executive of the National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts and Visiting Professor at University College, London, the London School of Economics and the University of Melbourne...
  
  , Richard R. Nelson
  Richard R. Nelson (economist)
  Richard R. Nelson is an American professor of economics at Columbia University. He is one of the leading figures in the revival of evolutionary economics thanks to his seminal book An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change written jointly with Sidney G. Winter...
  
  , John Ruggie
  John Ruggie
  John Gerard Ruggie is the Berthold Beitz Professor in Human Rights and International Affairs at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and Affiliated Professor in International Legal Studies at Harvard Law School...
  
  , and Tim Wirth
  Tim Wirth
  Timothy Endicott Wirth is a former United States Senator from Colorado. Wirth, a Democrat, was a member of the House from 1975 to 1987 and was elected to the Senate in 1986, serving one term there before stepping down. He was Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs during the Clinton...
  
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Cases authored by innovators

A differentiating feature of Innovations is that the case about innovators addressing global challenges are authored by the innovators themselves. Each includes discussion of motivations, challenges, strategies, outcomes, and unintended consequences. Following each case narrative, we present commentary by an academic discussant. The discussant highlights the aspects of the innovation that are analytically most interesting, have the most significant implications for policy, and/or best illustrate reciprocal relationships between technology and governance.

Authors and co-authors of Innovations case narratives and discussions have included Seth Berkley

Seth Berkley

Seth Franklin Berkley, M.D. is a medical epidemiologist by training. He is the CEO of the GAVI Alliance and a global advocate on the power of vaccines. He is also the founder and former President and CEO of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative ....

, Larry Brilliant

Larry Brilliant

Lawrence "Larry" Brilliant is an American physician, epidemiologist, technologist, author, and the former director of Google's philanthropic arm Google.org. Brilliant, a technology patent holder, has been CEO of two public companies and other venture backed start ups. From 1973 to 1976, he...

, John Elkington

John Elkington

John Elkington is a world authority on corporate responsibility and sustainable development. He is currently the Founding Partner & Executive Chairman of , a future-focused business working at the intersection of the sustainability, entrepreneurship and innovation movements...

, Matt Flannery (co-founder of Kiva (organization)

Kiva (organization)

Kiva Microfunds is an organization that allows people to lend money via the Internet to microfinance institutions in developing countries around the world and in the United States, which in turn lend the money to small businesses and students...

), Peter Gabriel

Peter Gabriel

Peter Brian Gabriel is an English singer, musician, and songwriter who rose to fame as the lead vocalist and flautist of the progressive rock group Genesis. After leaving Genesis, Gabriel went on to a successful solo career...

, Robin Hanson

Robin Hanson

Robin D. Hanson is an associate professor of economics at George Mason University and a research associate at the Future of Humanity Institute of Oxford University. He is known as an expert on idea futures, markets and was involved in the creation of the Foresight Exchange and DARPA's FutureMAP...

, Richard Anthony Jefferson

Richard Anthony Jefferson

Richard Anthony Jefferson is an American-born molecular biologist, who developed the reporter gene system GUS, a widespread molecular technique...

, Victoria Hale

Victoria Hale

Dr. Victoria Hale founded the nonprofit pharmaceutical company The Institute for OneWorld Health in San Francisco, California in 2000 and was its chairman and CEO until 2008. She remains on the iOWH board as Chair Emeritus...

, Cory Ondrejka

Cory Ondrejka

Cory Ondrejka is a software developer best known as the former Chief Technology Officer of Linden Lab, makers of Second Life. With Philip Rosedale, Ondrejka co-founded Second Life and played a significant role in the architecture of the product...

, and Bunker Roy

Bunker Roy

Sanjit 'Bunker' Roy is an Indian social activist and educator. In 1972 he founded the Barefoot college in Tilonia, Rajasthan. The Indian non-governmental organization was registered as the Social Work and Research Centre...

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External links

• GMU School of Public Policy official page
• Kennedy School of Government official page
• MIT Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship official page