Serendipity, talent and innovation

Serendipity or  “discovery by chance” is  an ubiquitous phenomenon in scientific research  and innovation. However in science  funding the role of randomness is usually ignored. This produces  often   conformism  and    promotes  a  naif   meritocracy which does not foster innovative ideas.  In this talk I will discuss a simple agent-based model [1,2] that shows that, if it is true that some degree of talent is necessary to be successful in life/science, almost never the most talented people reach the highest peaks of success, being overtaken by averagely talented but sensibly luckier individuals. This counterintuitive result  sheds new light on the effectiveness of assessing merit and resources only on the basis of the past reached level of success. I will also compare several policy hypotheses to show the most efficient strategies for distributing public funds for research, aiming to improve  real meritocracy, diversity of ideas and innovation.

References 

[1]  A Pluchino, AE Biondo, A Rapisarda, Talent versus luck: The role of randomness in success and failure, Advances in Complex systems 21 (03n04), 1850014

[2] D Challet, A Pluchino, AE Biondo, A Rapisarda, The origins of extreme wealth inequality in the talent versus luck model, Advances in Complex Systems 23 (02), 2050004