What role can design play in enabling missions to emerge as an alternative investment logic in public innovation systems?

Rowan Conway

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: Mission design, as a novel suite of design practices, demonstrates how design can act as a structuring logic for large-scale sustainability transitions. Using collaborative design as a mechanism for co-designing ambitious innovation portfolios, missions can redefine how institutions perceive risk, directionality, and value creation. This article examines the application of design practices in the context of missions. It highlights the important differences between traditional innovation systems and a normative mission framework aimed at catalyzing innovation to solve social and environmental challenges. Although the practices, methods, and cultures of design are broadly similar across contexts, the economic logics are different. This article therefore draws on examples of mission design, seeking to make explicit how missions are economically distinct from traditional innovation investment tools and contrast these with practices focused on the acceleration and scaling of commercial innovation.

Keywords: financial backbones; mission-oriented innovation; missions; portfolio design; transformative capital; transformative innovation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 20 pages
Date: 2026-07-02
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Published in She Ji, 2, July, 2026, 12(2), pp. 231-250. ISSN: 2405-8726

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