Technological infrastructures and innovation policies

Johan Hauknes

No 199909, STEP Report series from The STEP Group, Studies in technology, innovation and economic policy

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to outline the concept of technological infrastructures and to give a broad discussion of policy approaches to these infrastructures. I first outline some general features of generic technology or knowledge; the area that has been the prime focus of market failure arguments for innovation policies over the last decades.Related to the concept of generic knowledge is the concept of technological infrastructures. These infrastructures have traditionally been described in terms of structures of national institutions providing generic knowledge in the form of RTO services. Reviewing the literature we argue that the concept may be developed to a more fruitful concept of technological infrastructures that are more closely related to the nature of the economic resources or services provided by the infrastructure. This approach unties the strong definitional links between the traditionalised concept and the institutions providing these services.This has the rather immediate consequence of allowing a more nuanced approach to those innovation policies that address the establishment and maintenance of technological infrastructures. This allows the policy formulation process to address the economic resources more directly, but at the same time this disentangling puts more exacting demands on the capabilities of the policy maker.I give a preliminary overview of main trends of innovation policies in the post-war period. This overview indicates how policy approaches to technological infrastructures have changed during this period, and how in particular how there has been a drift of policy thinking from institutionally based policies over the main parts of the post-war period, with supplementing functional approaches becoming evident over the last two decades.The functional, or resource based, approach to technological infrastructures allows us to describe ongoing structural changes of these infrastructures. Through an outline of some main aspects of these structural changes, with increasing market based supply of innovation related services, and its immediate policy implications we suggest that TIP policies must fully embrace a functional approach to accommodate the impact of these changes.

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