Ambition Meets Reality: Mission-Oriented Innovation Policy as a Driver for Participative Governance

Maria Rabadjieva,Judith Terstriep

doi:10.3390/su13010231

Abstract

As a response to the grand societal challenges reflected in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the transition towards sustainability has gained momentum in recent years, as has the debate on mission-orientation in innovation policy. Harnessing the positive transformation potential for innovation, is about collaboratively exploring complex and uncertain pathways, especially when the goal is sustainable local economic development. Nevertheless, the demand for participatory approaches posed by the re-emergence of mission-orientated innovation policy, and the conditions for their successful implementation at the local level, particularly in the framework of economic development, are poorly understood and not yet in the focus of the current debate. This article conceptualises participation as a new mode of governance for sustainable local economic development, and links it to mission-orientation in innovation policy. We differentiate forms, degree of involvement and target groups, as well as highlight the underlying rationales and modes of interactions. Based on action-research carried out over three years in the city of Bottrop, Germany, we conceptualise an ideal-typical practice of participatory governance. Our findings show that firms are willing to participate in sustainable local economic development, only if they can internalise at least part of the value-added.

Highlights

Driver for Participative Governance.Being a top priority on policy agendas at the local, national and supranational level, innovation policy experienced a turn from fixing market and systems failure, towards tackling ‘grand societal challenges’ such as climate change, ageing, inclusive and smart growth as well as problems of ongoing economic restructuring [1,2,3,4]
In an attempt to provide initial responses to these research questions, we will proceed as follows: first, we introduce the concept of participatory governance as a new mode of local economic development, towards transformational change
Taking the example of a German Local economic development agencies (LDAs), the concept of participative governance was scrutinised as a solution to implementing mission-oriented innovation policy (MIP)

Summary

Introduction

Being a top priority on policy agendas at the local, national and supranational level, innovation policy experienced a turn from fixing market and systems failure, towards tackling ‘grand societal challenges’ such as climate change, ageing, inclusive and smart growth as well as problems of ongoing economic restructuring [1,2,3,4] This ‘normative turn’ [5] has made way for what has been labelled mission-oriented innovation policy (MIP) [1], transformative innovation policy [4,6] or challenge-oriented innovation policy [7,8].

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion