Workshop on transformative change &
three frames of innovation policy 8-10 January 2018, Mexico City
Johan Schot
Director of SPRU,Professor of Sustainability Transitions & History of Technology
Objectives
• Discuss frames in context of world in transition
• Consider relevance of TIPC type work for STI
policy in Mexico both at national and regional level
• Provide concepts and tools on transformative
innovation policy work
• Apply three frames to current STI policies and
identify areas for further work
• Enable process of co-creation
Transformative Innovation Policy
Consortium (TIPC)
• Aim is to explore the future of STI policy, its foundation,
formulation and governance, responding to World in
Transition
• This is recognized by EU, OECD, UN and other
international organizations as important new agenda
• Focus is on how to deliver on transformative STI policy,
so on implementation, experimentation, new policy
practices, evaluation, training, and mutual learning
Three Frames of Innovation Policy Lecture workshop on transformative change &
3frames of innovation policy, 8-10 January 2018
Mexico City
Johan Schot
Director of SPRU,Professor of Sustainability Transitions & History of Technology
World in Transition
4. Deep
Transitions
3. Transforming
Innovation
2. Grand
Challenges1. Mega Trends
Expressions of a World in Transition
1. Mega Trends
Growing
Unemployment
Climate Change Multi-polar world
Megacities
Globalization
Migration Growing Inequality
3. Transforming Innovation
Creative Destruction or Destructive Creation?
Three Frames of Innovation Policy
R&D & Regulation: Frame 1
• Dominant in 1960s-1980s
• Market Failures
• R&D produces economic growth, driven by
productivity growth & public welfare
• R&D leads to competitive advantage & national
prestige
• Markets lead to externalities & need regulation
• Emphasis on uncertainty & long term gains
R&D & Regulation: Frame 1
The Focus & Actors
Focus:
• Knowledge production, R&D, breakthroughs, high-
tech, novelty
Innovation Actors:
• Government & market actors with a tendency to
prioritise large firms
• Experts, scientists, inventors, engineers
R&D & Regulation: Frame 1 Policy
Activities• R&D stimulation (subsidies, tax credits,
procurement, mission oriented programs)
• Intellectual Property Rights
• Improve knowledge base
• Education Policy on Science & Engineering
• Science for Society Communication
• Foresight & Technology Assessment
Invention Innovation Diffusion
R&D & Regulation: Innovation Model
for Frame 1
National Systems of Innovation: Frame 2
• Dominant 1990s-today
• Systems Failures
• R&D & learning (by producing, using and
interacting) produces economic growth, public
welfare & competitive advantage therefore
national prestige
• National, Regional & Sectoral Systems of
Innovation
• Entrepreneurship/role of business
National Systems of Innovation:
The Focus & Actors in Frame 2
Focus
• Product & process innovation, incremental innovation,
hidden innovation, learning
Innovation Actors
• Market actors, SMEs, entrepreneurs, universities,
governments, users, networks, intermediaries, public-
private partnerships (civil society?)
National Systems of Innovation:
Frame 2 Policy Activities
• R&D, IPR, Education Policy, Foresight, Regulation
• Spaces for interaction on various levels, for
example technology platforms
• Use of demand stimuli, e.g. procurement
• Building Regional & National System of Innovation
• Ability to absorb knowledge, e.g. capability
building, skills development
• Programs to stimulate entrepreneurship,
incubators
National Systems of Innovation:
Frame 2 Innovation model
Kline and Rosenberg (1986)
Transformative Change: Frame 3
• Still emerging
• Social & environmental needs failure (e.g. inequality & climate change)
• Explicit recognition R&D & innovation - do not automatically lead to human welfare
• Need to distinguish between good & bad innovation
• Regulation is necessary but not sufficient for addressing societal challenges
• Need for Transformative Change/Sustainability Transitions
Transformative Change:
The Focus & Actors for Frame 3
Focus
• Socio-technical systems
• Inclusion, broad social participation, informal
economy, grassroots innovation (for functional
reasons, and for political reasons)
Innovation Actors
• All actors can be innovative, including users-
consumer, civil society, marginalised
populations
Transformative Change:
Frame 3 Policy Activities• Building transition arenas: supporting diversity & opening
up for alternatives, pathways to sustainability
• Building on social innovation, inclusive innovation, frugal innovation, pro-poor innovation
• Setting up large scale societal experiments & scaling-up (use or creation of intermediaries) Strategic Niche Management
• Enhancing anticipation, adaptability, reflexivity capabilities
• Constructive Technology Assessment & Responsible Research & Innovation (participation)
• Bridge Science/Engineering & Social Sciences & Humanities in Education system
• New institutions for coordination between various policies, integrating of STI into other policies (energy, housing, agriculture, healthcare, transport, and city policies); seeking policy mixes
Principles of transformative ST&I
Policy in Frame 3
• Is there directionality?
• Is there a goal to focus on societal goals/challenges?
• Is there potential for socio-technical level system impact?
• Is there is degree of second order learning/reflexivity?
• Conflict vs consensus Are differences among stakeholders
acknowledged and encouraged?
• Inclusiveness in terms of actors/process, are new actors let
in?
TIPC phase 1 national review
Conclusion 1 – Frame 3 is marginal
Frame 3 is mainly aspirational, misses strong
narrative; Frame 1 and 2 are quite strong, embedded
in institutional structures and in regulations.
Yet at the same time there is sense of urgency,
sense that frame 1 & 2 are not delivering, STI is
under pressure to deliver not only economic
development but also contribute to societal and
environmental goals
Question about relationships between frames is not
addressed.
Need expressed for more experimental approaches
Conclusion 2 - how to do Transformative Innovation
Policy is unclear
Gap between narrative and implementation of transformative innovation policy. The following instruments are used:
• Responsible Research and Innovation (Norway)
• Procurement (South-Africa and Finland)
• Challenge- led/Strategic R&D programs (Sweden, Finland)
• Demand articulation with public involvement (Norway, Finland, Colombia)
• Social innovation, grassroots innovation (Colombia & South Africa)
• Technology Forcing regulation (Finland)
Conclusion 3 - need for theory of
change
• Underlying theory of change/transformative is
missing.
• Transition perspective could fill this gap with focus
on experimentation, niche development, regime
destabilisation, and policy mixes
• This is recognized in Finland and Sweden,
including first try-outs of mapping instrument onto
transition dynamics
Conclusion 4 - notion of
transformation is unclear
• What is called transformative is different in each context; transformation of research system, industry structure, resource economy, exclusion patterns, integrating informal economy in innovation system, but not sociotechnical system change
• How to move from identifying challenges to transformative change?
• How to move from individual policy programs, experiments to a broader change process?
• How to anchor learning & change including capacity building is not addressed
Conclusion 5 - moving from funder
to change agent is difficult
• Founding members are research funders. They
struggle to combine role of funder and strategic
change actor. In the latter role they become mobilisers
& facilitators and enter the areas of other ministries
and actors, this adds complexity, leads to questions
about their mandate, and their capacity to do the job.
• In a deeper sense the institutional context is missing,
there is a lot of fragmentation in the research system &
lack of coordination. How to overcome this is unclear.
• Open Question is whether an experimental approach
might help.
Conclusion 6 - research evaluation
for transformative change is lacking
Research evaluations are input and output oriented,
focus on audit element; process oriented evaluation
focusing on transformative change and providing
input in the process itself (formative evaluation ) is
totally lacking
Pushing the
frontiers
of knowledge
Research
impact
Training the
next generation
• Research
addresses
real world
problems
• Co-
producing
knowledge
with
stakeholders
• Sustained
engagement
and long
• Teaching
and research
closely
intertwined
• Broad
international
and
interdisciplin
ary scope
• Combination
of practical
and
Thank you.
Papers and more details on Transformative Innovation Policy
(TIP)
www.transformative-innovation-policy.net
See also:
www.sussex.ac.uk/spru
www.johanschot.com
Follow on Twitter: @TIPConsortium
@Johan_Schot
Transformative Change using the
Multi-level PerspectiveLecture workshop on transformative change &
3frames of innovation policy, 8-10 January 2018
Mexico City
Johan Schot
Director of SPRU,Professor of Sustainability Transitions & History of Technology
4. Deep Transition
…Moving in a
similar direction
Transitions in multiple
sociotechnical
systems…
Deep Transitions: Emergence, Acceleration, Stabilization and Directionality
Johan Schot, Laur Kanger 2016. Available at www.johanschot.com
Socio-technical
System for Mobility
Maintenance and
distribution network
Industry
structure
Road infrastructure and
traffic system
Regulations
and policies
Markets
and user
practices
Culture and symbolic
meaning
Vehicle Fuel infrastructure
First and Second Deep Transitions
Source: Adapted from C. Perez (2002)
Industrial
(1770-1830)
Steam & Railways
(1830-1870)
Steel, Electricity &
Heavy Engineering
(1875-1920)
Oil and Mass
Production
(1910-1975)
Information & Telecom(1971- ?)
We are here
1800 1850 1900 1950 2000 2050
2nd surge
3rd surge
4th surge
5th surge
First
Deep
Transition
Second
Deep
Transition?
1st surge
Deg
ree
of
dif
fusi
on
of
succ
essi
ve
and
ove
rlap
pin
gte
chn
olo
gic
al p
ote
nti
als
Years
First and Second Deep Transitions
Source: Adapted from C. Perez (2002)
Industrial
(1770-1830)
Steam & Railways
(1830-1870)
Steel, Electricity &
Heavy Engineering
(1875-1920)
Oil and Mass
Production
(1910-1975)
Information & Telecom(1971- ?)
We are here
1800 1850 1900 1950 2000 2050
2nd surge
3rd surge
4th surge
5th surge
First
Deep
Transition
Second
Deep
Transition?
1st surge
Deg
ree
of
dif
fusi
on
of
succ
essi
ve
and
ove
rlap
pin
gte
chn
olo
gic
al p
ote
nti
als
Years
2017- 2050 Second Plastics Revolution?
2017- 2050 Post-Plastics Transformation
A World in Transition demands: Riding the waves of the megatrends, addressing grand challenges, modifying the innovation engine, working towards a deep transition of multi-socio-technical systems and avoiding war (or working towards peace)…
Definition of a Socio-technical Regime:
• A socio-technical technical regime consists
of a distinct set of stable rules, used by
actors to guide socio-technical design and
use. This rule-set is embodied in shared
engineering search heuristics, ways of
defining problems, user preferences,
expectations, product characteristics, skills
and standards.
Innovation Model: Frame 3
Stability
of rules
Percentage of
population usingthe rules
Earlymarket
niche
Early niche
branching, emergence
of technical regime
Stable,dominant
socio-technical regime
Eroded, unstableregime
1
2
3 erosion of existing regime,
hollowing out
4 decline of regime
4 wider breakthrough;
grows into socio-technical regime)
External change
Based on Schot and Geels, 2007
Geels, 2002, Geels and Schot, 2007, Schot and Kanger, 2016
Overcoming lock-in through niche
formation
• Application of a potential transformative
innovation in a new domain (niche) triggers
a divergent trajectory leading to a new
sociotechnical regime /system that may
begin to compete with the older regime.
Application domain A
Direction of technological development
Application domain B
Lineage development:* distinct selection criteria* distinct resource pool
Shift in application domain (speciation)
Based on Levinthal, 1998: 23
Building up Internal Momentum of Niches
Shared rules ( search heuristics,expectations, abstract theories, technical models)
problem agendas,
Aggregation,learning
Global level(community,field)
Local projects,carried by localnetworks,characterisedby local variety
Emergingtechnologicaltrajectory
Framing, coordinating
• Stimulate local projects as niche
building experiments, and in general
variety = Strategic Niche
Management (SNM).
Policy Implication
SNM View of Strategy
Intendedstrategy
Deliberate strategy
Realizedstrategy
Emergentstrategy
Unrealizedstrategy
Based on Minzberg, 1998
Strategic Niche Management
1. Second-order learning, leading to new rule-sets
2. Constructing shared and specific visions (to give
direction + attract attention)
3. Building deep and broad social networks (alliances,
support, resources)
4. Niche-regime interactions (empowerment, stretch and
conform)
5. Shielding (active and passive)
6. Crucial role of intermediary actors
Strategic Niche Management
Geels and Raven, 2006
Accepted visions and expectations (on functionality) form agenda of emerging field
Resources + requirements(finance, protection,specifications)
Artefact-activity: Projects in local practices R&D projects, pilot projects)(
Global network of actors (emerging community)
Outcomes and new promises by local actors
Cognitive, formal and normative rules(knowledge, regulations, behavioural norms)
Local practices
Global level (emerging field)
Learning,articulationaggregation
Enrol more actors
Adjust expectations
Can transition thinking be used in
developing world?
1. Questions about transition for who and by whom are
more pertinent? Systems are more biased
2. Ill-functioning institutions (legitimation issues, and
personalised owned by elites, corruption)
3. Framework is not sensitive enough to poverty
alleviation (need for economic growth);
4. Actors seek reduction of uncertainty, seek security, risk
avoidance, and risk management is more important
(will influence expectations, networking, learning etc)
5. Relationship between research and policy is different;
how do we position researchers & foreign researchers?
Pushing the
frontiers
of knowledge
Research
impact
Training the
next generation
• Research
addresses
real world
problems
• Co-
producing
knowledge
with
stakeholders
• Sustained
engagement
and long
• Teaching
and research
closely
intertwined
• Broad
international
and
interdisciplin
ary scope
• Combination
of practical
and
Thank you.
Papers and more details on Transformative Innovation Policy
(TIP)
www.transformative-innovation-policy.net
See also:
www.sussex.ac.uk/spru
www.johanschot.com
Follow on Twitter: @TIPConsortium
@Johan_Schot
Lessons from transformative
innovation case histories• Transformation is long term process, not a continuous
process , top-down, bottom-up, not linear
• Persistence and continuity – located in process of intermediation/embedding of learning
• Orchestration is missing – making connections between local-national-international & within and between socio-technical systems
• If experimentation is really key, failures need to be acceptable which is difficult
• Importance of leadership and capabilities to mobilise and connect
