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Disruptive innovation, an element of an ethics of the future applicable to environmental health Volume 19, issue 6, November-December 2020

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LRGP-UMR7274 CNRS/UL
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Research programming has become a recurring habit on the part of the powers that be, as if one can really be creative and imaginative under constraints. But the restriction of freedom comes at a price, that of an evaluation in substance (not only with quantitative indicators). This failure of overly programmatic systems too often results in incremental improvements that satisfy decision-makers in that their risk-taking and accountability are modest. But for all that, against the bleak backdrop of a future disrupted by major environmental effects, these small steps risk merely postponing back a possible end date for humanity. Empowering creative people to invent breakthrough innovations is perhaps one way to change the present situation. While we are not sure of winning, it is a new pathway to be tested and supported, provided that inertia is eliminated from the intellectual game of risky research. This willingness to open the debate is the subject of this paper.