ARE INDIVIDUAL INVENTORS INVISIBLE? THE MISSING LINK BETWEEN CREATIVE PEOPLE AND SUPPORT FOR INNOVATION

The research about the population of individual inventors/innovators in Croatia was carried out with the aim of finding answers to the following questions: 1. How many inventions/patents in Croatia are (not) commercialized; 2. What are the reasons of (un)successful commercialization of Croatian individual inventors’ inventions/patents; 3. Is there any correlation between various forms of support for inventors / patent owners and successful commercialization; 4. Could education/training contribute to the successful commercialization of inventions/patents? The research was designed and carried out on individual inventors/innovators in Croatia via combination of online questionnaire and telephone interviews. The acquired data were analysed by descriptive statistics and nonparametric inferential statistics. Based on the results of the research, the literature and practical experience, a typology of individual inventors / innovators has been created. The research limitations relate to the lack of the institutional data and literature regarding the individual inventors. In addition to practical contribution of the findings regarding the public policies, there is also a theoretical contribution to existing literature.