---
title: "Benoît Godin"
chunk: 1/1
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benoît_Godin"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:36:44.616227+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

Benoît Godin was a Canadian political scientist and sociologist.


== Biography ==
Benoît Godin is mostly known for his research into the history of statistics, statistics of innovation, and of the ideological roots of the concept of innovation. After a first degree at the Université Laval (1984) in Québec (CA), he obtained a PhD at the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU) the University of Sussex (UK) in 1994). From February 1993 until his death he was professor at Institut national de la recherche scientifique INRS, Québec (CA).


== Work ==
The work of Benoît Godin covers both the history of quantification and that of innovation. He worked on measurement statistics in science, on the history of science proper, as well as that of technology and innovation. In the last years of his life he focused on the intellectual history of innovation, noting how the ‘superlative’ connotation of the term innovation is recent, in relative terms, as it had a rather negative connotation until the late 1960s or early 1970s.


== Books ==
Godin, Benoit (2020). The idea of technological innovation : a brief alternative history. Edward Elgar Publishing. Cheltenham. ISBN 978-1-83910-400-8. OCLC 1152021488.{{cite book}}:  CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
(As editor with Dominique Vinck) Critical Studies of Innovation: Alternative Approaches to the Pro-Innovation Bias.
Godin, Benoit (2019). The invention of technological innovation : languages, discourses and ideology in historical perspective. Edward Elgar Publishing. Cheltenham, UK. ISBN 978-1-78990-334-8. OCLC 1125747489.{{cite book}}:  CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
Godin, Benoit (2017). Models of innovation : the history of an idea. Cambridge, Massachusetts. ISBN 978-0-262-33880-6. OCLC 990341355.{{cite book}}:  CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
Godin, Benoit (2015). Innovation contested : the idea of innovation over the centuries. New York, New York. ISBN 978-1-315-85560-8. OCLC 903958473.{{cite book}}:  CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
Bowker, Geoffrey C. (1 June 2007). "Benoît Godin: Measurement and Statistics on Science and Technology: 1920 to the Present". Isis. 98 (2): 403–404. doi:10.1086/521473. ISSN 0021-1753.
Handbook on alternative theories of innovation. Benoît. Godin, Gérald Gaglio, Dominique Vinck. Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. 2021. ISBN 978-1-78990-230-3. OCLC 1285169135.{{cite book}}:  CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: others (link)


== See also ==
Innovation
Science and technology studies
Social construction of technology


== References ==


== External links ==
Page of Benoît Godin at INRS
Page of The Idea of Innovation, A project funded by the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).
CASTI Network, Conceptual Approaches to Science, Technology, and Innovation: An Interdisciplinary Research Network.