Page 48 - IFIA_Magazine_No9
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| IFIA M agazine - S ept ember 2019
DISCOVERY OR INVENTION:
THE CASE FOR RECALIBRATING
THE NOBEL PRIZE FOR PHYSICS
By Örjan Strandberg, Spokesman of the Swedish National Innovators Council and
Chair of the Stockholm Innovators Association, Stockholm, Sweden
Most countries in the world agree that inventions and innovations are prereq-
uisites for every nation’s industrial and societal growth and welfare. Intellectual
property laws are the most important incentive for encouraging innovation and
creativity. These laws recognize and reward inventors and ensure society benefits
from inventions.
The other important motivator for invention and innovation is society’s general en-
couragement and acknowledgment of the inventor, both politically and socially,
via the media, through awards and stipends, for example.
Alfred Nobel was an inventor, entrepreneur, scientist
and businessman with a keen interest in poetry and
drama. He was known for inventing dynamite. He held
355 patents (photo: Amy Stock Photo / © Akademie).
Arguably, the most important international award for in-
ventors should have been the Nobel Prize for Physics.
However, that prize, for reasons we will explain, has, over
time, come to be perceived as the world’s most presti-
gious science prize and is no longer specifically associ-
ated with invention.
That all nations need a rich and continuous flow of skilled
researchers and scientists are a given. But this should not
detract from the equally important need for ingenious in-
ventors and their inventions. History shows us that inventors
are the main originators of technological, industrial and soci-
etal growth. In Sweden, for example, a report entitled, Where did
Sweden’s Top 100 Innovations originate? by the Swedish innovation
researcher Dr. shows that at least 80 percent of inventions originate
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