Synthetic biology, water industry and the performance of an innovation barrier

Susan Molyneux-Hodgson and Andrew S. Balmer

Science and Public Policy, 2014, vol. 41, issue 4, 507-519

Abstract: This paper analyses the performance of a research programme that sought to address issues of innovation in the water industry through the application of synthetic biology approaches to water problems. We use this analysis to re-imagine the problem of innovation in the UK water sector. Using textual, observational and interview data, we examine how a series of discourses have, over time, become firmly connected in the context of water innovation. Discourses include: conceptualisation of public actors as consumers who are ignorant of the complexities of water and its true value; and the primacy of market-based mechanisms to produce innovation. We show how these discourses shaped the expectations of academic and industry actors as they sought to use synthetic biology as a solution to industrial problems. Expecting innovation barriers of a certain form, these actors helped to construct the very thing they sought to dismantle.

Date: 2014
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:scippl:v:41:y:2014:i:4:p:507-519.

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