We have tried to assess whether innovation matters 'only' for itself and the growth it can bring, in GDP or social welfare. Answer, no: innovation matters because it is the answer to every sort of question.

We know that new is not better nor even essential in everything: so we took the Juncker College ten priorities, and their component parts, and assessed innovation's fit with them.

Our conclusions:

-innovation is never irrelevant, and never the whole story;

-people have rather different perspectives on where innovation matters most.

Take the spider chart below: from a largely tech perspective, innovation has a more limited relevance than if we take into account the inno-optimism of the social innovation and impact investor community.

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So what do you think? What shape does your spider chart take?

Even without your input so far, we are inclined to see this mind-game as proving two equally important points: first that innovation really is everywhere; second, that too close a focus on tech can make us miss the broader potential of innovative approaches in the 21st century…