Innovation studies, innovation strategies

Innovation Studies, Innovation Strategies Fridays at The Harbor 6 March 2020

Jerker Moodysson & Henry Lopez-Vega

Your expectations on today’s meeting?

• Who are you?

• What do you expect to learn?

• What knowledge and perspectives can you share with us?

Innovation Studies: Science, Technology, Economy, Society

Aim and ambition • Causes for and consequences of innovation • Better understand and explain preconditions for innovation.

• • • •

Which barriers and facilitators can be identified?

Which are within reach for change agents?

Who are these change agents?

What can innovation policy do?

• No specific interest in technology. Focus on social systems, strategy and policy.

What do we mean with “innovation”?

• New creations of economic significance • New combinations of knowledge • New challenges to existing structures • New market logics, new consumer behaviour, and – sometimes – new technology

Why innovation?

• The only “sustainable” way to achieve economic growth and social wealth (?)

Why innovation? • The first bird gets the worm‌

• ‌but the second mouse gets the cheese

Point of departure • “Science, the endless frontier” (Bush, 1945) => investments in science will eventually lead to increased innovation capacity and economic growth => Innovation policy 1.0 • Today largely rejected (but still society acts as if it was valid…).

• Innovation is a non-linear process. Breakthroughs in science will not necessarily generate innovations.

• Most innovations are not science based.

• Most innovations are made by big established companies.

Point of departure • Performance depends not only on the capabilities of specific organisations, but also on how they interact with each other.

• Innovation Systems: …the elements and relationships which interact in the production, diffusion and use of new, and economically useful, knowledge… (Lundvall, 1992).

• National, regional, local, sectoral, technological etc etc => Innovation policy 2.0

Innovation Systems l a an

l a c i t y

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Innovation System Challenges • Fragmentation • Organizational thinness • Lock-in

Challenges not so well addressed…

• Mainly ”upstream-focused” (market/adoption hardly considered) • Little attention to societal needs (except economic growth) • Little attention to system change/transformation/disruption • Need to better understand and address: • • • • •

Conflicting interests Challenged hierarchies Interaction between producers and users Shared visions Societal acceptance to the innovation/new technology

Innovation policy 3.0?

• Mission-oriented policy • Fostering wider system change • Influence directionality • A horizontal policy approach that mobilizes technology, market mechanisms, regulations and social innovation (OECD, 2015) • Makes a lot sense, but also adds complexity. Who are “policymakers” nowadays? What is innovation policy? (everything??)

Regime • Coherent complex of knowledge-, technology-, rule-, policy-, routineand norm system contributing to stability (path dependence). • Facilitates incremental development (path extension) but most often a barrier for change (path renewal, new path creation). Coordinating effects on actors. • Technological and political paradigms, production factors, sunk investments, vested interests, regulations, user attitudes (consumer habits, trends, scepticism), social acceptance/legitimacy.

Niche • Experiment aiming to challenge (and change?) existing regime through new technology and institutional adaptation.

• Sometimes referred to as ”incubation spaces”, i.e. protected areas in which new technology is temporarily shielded from the structuration forces found in the regime.

• Network formation, collective learning, alignment of expectations, legitimation.

Landscape • Overall socio-technical setting, wider political, cultural and economic background. Framework conditions. • Can be conserving but also contribute to trigger change. • Social values, political beliefs, world views, prices, costs, trade patterns, incomes.

Innovation System Challenges revisited…

• Directionality • • • •

Coordination failures Vested interests, regulatory capture Alignment of expectations Capabilities and knowledge bases

Reflection • What is my role in the innovation system?

• What are my main challenges? To what extent are those within reach for me? To what extent am I dependent on other actors in the system?

• How do I interact with external partners? Complementary capabilities? Gaps? Conflicting interests?