Richard K. Lester is Japan Steel Industry Professor and Head of the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering (NSE) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he is also the founding director of the MIT Industrial Performance Center (IPC). His teaching and research focus on innovation management and policy, with an emphasis on the energy and manufacturing sectors. He has led large-scale studies of national and regional competitiveness and innovation performance in North America, Europe, and Asia. He has also written extensively on the management and control of nuclear technology. In addition to his latest book, Unlocking Energy Innovation, other recent books include Innovation – The Missing Dimension (with Michael J. Piore), on the sources of creativity and innovation in advanced economies, and Making Technology Work, based on a popular MIT course on “Applications of Technology in Energy and the Environment” he co-taught for many years with his colleague John M. Deutch.