How does transformative innovation policy travel across physical and cognitive spaces? Exploring the role of mutable fluid space in experimental policy engagements

Abstract

The growing call for public policy to begin addressing more robustly the challenges posed by sustainability transitions puts the onus on researchers to study how new meta-frameworks of transformative innovation policy and accompanying practices are implemented, applied, and received when they travel across different geographies. We discuss this question by tracing debates with reference to geography of sustainability transitions, policy mobility and actor network literatures. A methodological approach to analyse a cross-country policy initiative is developed and examined through three experiments of transformative innovation policy in diverse policy organisations with different missions and in contrasting geographical and professional spaces. The discussion highlights the relevance of building what we call mutable fluid spaces between academics and policy makers and its importance for transferring transformative innovation policy across geographical spaces.11The concept of space in this paper is used in a flexible manner and refers to where different human practices take place (Harvey, 2006). See further discussion in Section 4. The words place, physical space, geographical space or spatial(ity) are used interchangeably to refer to practices in three-dimensional coordinates or on a map or grid. Other meanings of space are also used, such as network space or fluid space that are defined in the text but have different scales and are governed by diverse processes of learning. By country we refer to a spatially defined policy jurisdiction.