Mobilizing innovation for sustainability transitions: A comment on transformative innovation policy

Jan Fagerberg

Research Policy, 2018, vol. 47, issue 9, 1568-1576

Abstract: The topics addressed in this paper concern the (much-needed) transition to sustainability and what role (innovation) policy can play in speeding up such changes. In their Discussion Paper Schot and Steinmueller (2018) argue that the existing theorizing and knowledge bases within the field of innovation studies are “unfit” for this task and that a totally new approach is required. This paper takes issue with this claim. Policy advice, it is argued, needs to be anchored in the accumulated research on the issue at hand, in this case, innovation. The paper therefore starts by distilling some important insights on innovation from the accumulated research on this topic and, with this in mind, considers various policy approaches that have been suggested for influencing innovation and sustainability transitions. Finally, the lessons for the development and implementation of transformative innovation policy are considered. It is concluded that the existing theorizing and knowledge base in innovation studies may be of great relevance when designing policies for dealing with climate change and sustainability transitions.

Keywords: Transformative innovation policy; Mission-oriented policy; Innovation system; Climate change; Sustainability; Transition (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (83)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733318301999
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Mobilizing innovation for sustainability transitions: a comment on transformative innovation policy (2021)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:respol:v:47:y:2018:i:9:p:1568-1576

DOI: 10.1016/j.respol.2018.08.012

Access Statistics for this article

Research Policy is currently edited by M. Bell, B. Martin, W.E. Steinmueller, A. Arora, M. Callon, M. Kenney, S. Kuhlmann, Keun Lee and F. Murray

More articles in Research Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().