Science Policy in a Socially Embedded Economy

Abstract

In this chapter, I study the consequences for science policy when deductive neoclassical economics is replaced with the idea of a socially embedded economy in policy discourse. For neoclassicals, science was exogenous to the economic system and thus not subjected to orthodox economic policy. If the economy instead is viewed as socially embedded, science becomes an integral part of the economy and can be made into a legitimate target for economic policy. In the post-war period, innovation theory removed itself from neoclassical economics and focused on how the socioeconomic environment affected innovation. New concepts emerged, such as the innovation system concept, which could be used to treat science in an instrumental way and reduce its function to facilitate innovation, even though many of the original academic founders of the concept had no such intentions. The emergence of the Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems (VINNOVA) in Sweden 2001 is used to illustrate how the new innovation thinking could be used to legitimate a more instrumental treatment of universities.