Epilogue

Sylvia Schwaag Serger and Luc Soete

Chapter 26 in Research Handbook on Regions and Transformative Innovation Policy, 2026, pp 442-446 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: As the collection of papers in this handbook shows, numerous regions across the world are exploring ways to broaden the scope of innovation policy, from primarily pursuing productivity and competitiveness objectives to addressing environmental and social issues. In this epilogue, we reflect upon the broader shift in innovation policy towards directionality, transformation, and sustainability against the backdrop of the insights gained from regional experiences. We point to both significant challenges and potential opportunities, with regional innovation policies seeking or being expected to provide responses to broader sustainability challenges, the source, scope, and reach of which exceed their regional boundaries. More generally, the changes in regional innovation policy orientation reveal and confirm general difficulties arising from the pivot of innovation policy towards transformation and normative directionality. These problems include path dependency and policy mimicry of instruments and approaches, but also more institutional or systemic obstacles, such as a lack of vertical and horizontal policy alignment and differentiation, limited policy reflexivity, evolution and learning, and more fundamental political barriers. We conclude that innovation policy can play an important role in advancing normative transformation but caution that it cannot transform societies, economies or technological systems on its own, and argue that this topic deserves more attention from policymakers and researchers alike.

Keywords: Regional innovation policy; Regional transformation; Transformative innovation policy; Societal transformation; Sustainability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781035309924
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