Situated in a context of higher education policy, this article examines the institutionalization of "innovation" as a national neoliberal economic strategy. As neoliberal capital has become increasingly financialized, this innovation strategy has come to be woven through biotechnological innovation as an economic strategy, and oriented to the politics of permanent war. Following a "strong-state" thesis, relations of monopoly finance capital increasingly organize knowledge production within higher education and the need for technological innovation related to national security. The author shows that the resulting academic cultures of innovation are heavily invested in subordinating research in the areas of health and environment to military strategy in order to achieve full spectrum global systems of biosurveillance.