Innovation Policy Research Research Articles

A Review of Policy Framework Research on Promoting Sustainable Transformation of Digital Innovation

With the increasing demand for digital innovation scenarios, it is important to complement and improve the policy system for the governance of digital innovation activities. Combining the previous research results on the analysis of antecedent variables, basic effects and potential mechanisms of digital innovation, and based on the citation analysis of digital innovation topics based on the Citespace method, we find that in the past two decades, the topic of digital innovation policy research has gradually shifted from focusing on “constraining policies to control negative impacts” to focusing on “constructive policies to expand positive impacts”. The digital transformation has brought about multidimensional and profound impacts on the governance of innovation activities, and it is necessary to accelerate the theoretical research on policy frameworks for the new areas of technology socialization effects. Summarizing some of the important progresses, we propose a policy framework covering three aspects: policy needs for sustainable transformation of digital innovation, policy orientation and policy dimensions for sustainable transformation of digital innovation, creating R&D opportunities, optimizing R&D organization, building ecological advantages, improving R&D governance, knowledge creation, enabling applications, collaborative promotion, standardizing management, national digital innovation system, digital innovation foundation, data governance capacity, digital security and other aspects of the conceptual framework of the basic policies for sustainable transformation of digital innovation. The research viewpoints and conclusions are of theoretical reference value for further research on key policy conditions for digital innovation, major policy impact effects and digital innovation governance mechanisms.

Editorial

Editorial

Mapping trending topics and leading producers in innovation policy research

Introduction. We investigate the most relevant innovation policy research themes, as well as the authors and journals that produce the most research in this field. Method. We used bibliometrics combining two main procedures: performance analysis and science mapping. Analysis. The 2,929 documents under analysis were gathered from the Web of Science Core Collection database considering all years up to and including 2019. Results. A wide range of bibliometric indicators were used to identify the most cited innovation policy studies, and the most productive and influential authors and journals. Also, bibliometric maps of keyword co-occurrence, authors co-citation and countries co-authorship were depicted to visualize relevant relationships. Conclusions. This study shows that the combination of bibliometric performance analysis and science mapping offers a tool for evaluators to complement qualitative analyses of a research field. We identified four main findings. First, the main innovation policy research themes are based on three pillars: innovation systems and business, science and knowledge, and governance and sustainability transitions. Second, the leading authors in innovation policy work at institutions in Europe. Third, authors working at institutions in countries with a common or similar language, culture or innovation policy tend to collaborate. Fourth, the top journals in innovation policy reveal an increasing influence of sustainable development and transitions within this field.

Kairos in Innovation Policy

Abstract A kairos constellation designates a temporarily existing opportunity for a group of actors to take advantage of a coincidence of favourable circumstances in order to realise a shared target. Starting from the observation that kairos constellations are ubiquitous in human individual and social life, the research question of this paper is how the Triple Helix and the wider innovation policy research literature deals with such constellations. The authors develop a conceptual framework for kairos constellations and discuss empirical evidence that kairos constellations have been scrutinized in innovation research literature. Then, the concept is applied to an example from the Triple Helix – based cluster policy. The key message of this paper is that Triple Helix researchers should systematically study kairos constellations because they are a critical force in the evolution of innovations systems as well as business firms, which has not yet been systematically examined.

Calestous Juma. 9 June 1953—15 December 2017

Until his untimely death in December 2017 Professor Calestous Juma was an internationally-recognized authority and leader in the application of science, engineering and innovation to sustainable development in developing and developed countries. His continuing original work focused on analysing the co-evolution of technological innovation and institutional change in socio-economic systems. He ran programmes that advanced science, technology and innovation policy research, especially biotechnology, provided high-level science and technology advice and promoted the conservation of biological diversity. Juma was a Kenyan national and US permanent resident.

Which regions produce the most innovation policy research?

ABSTRACT This article uses the data indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection and Scopus databases up to and including the year 2020 to map leading regions and trending topics in academic innovation policy research. The country analysis highlights four leading regions in this research field: Western Europe (led by the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, and Spain), North America (led by the USA), Scandinavia (led by Sweden and Denmark), and Asia-Pacific (led by China and Australia). The most common keywords are used to develop a conceptual framework. Applying the Tree of Science approach, we classify the most influential studies into three categories: foundational studies (the roots), structural studies (the trunk), and recent studies (the leaves). This approach shows that trending topics are built around five main pillars: innovation systems, policy tools, knowledge management, sustainability, and entrepreneurship. Finally, based on analysis of the most common keywords and the most influential studies, we propose a Sextuple Helix model. This model consists of the Quintuple Helix (government, university, industry, knowledge society, and sustainability) with the added dimension of entrepreneurship. This model offers an analytical framework with massive potential for academic research on innovation policy in the current economic context.

Beyond the ‘usual suspects’ – Alternative qualitative methods for innovation policy studies

In this paper we make three points about the current state and promising future directions of qualitative research in our field of innovation policy research. First, we argue that research design and methods are dealt with quite superficially in most innovation policy studies papers and journals providing little guidance to new scholars as to how to approach their research. Secondly we argue that when methods are discussed, it tends to be a narrow range of qualitative methods that are used – most commonly a case study approach drawing on interviews and document analysis. Thirdly, we suggest broadening our approach to contain more participatory and action-based research; these are suggested as ways to include more groups in the research design, increase the impact of our work and allow us a deeper understanding of the formulation and development of innovation policy as is possible. We do not argue that the old methods should be put aside but that new additional approaches could be considered to capture the essence of innovation policy formulation.

Science, Technology and Innovation Policy Research

A three-day Workshop on Science, Technology and Innovation Policy Research (WSTIPR-2017) was organized to provide science, technology and innovation (STI) policy researchers and young scholars with a deeper understanding of STI policy drafting, implementation mechanisms and their subsequent socioeconomic impacts in India. The workshop was targeted at policy researchers and practitioners at doctoral and postdoctoral levels and professionals in government agencies as well as think-tanks working in the area of STI policy research.

From ethnocentrism to policy-centrism

ABSTRACTThis article is a response to the methodological problems I experienced during fieldwork. It follows that the article is an experiment of creating alternative possibilities for thinking about ethnocentrism as a phenomenon in transformation in a contemporary, innovative, higher educational setting. Throughout the article, I argue for the acknowledgement of policy-centrism as a phenomenon that has transformed out of classic ethnocentrism. The first part provides a reflective ethnographic background, while the second part focuses on sociologist William Graham Sumner’s classical work in order to disclose the constitutive principles of ethnocentrism as a phenomenon. The three following parts will, thus, discuss the transformation of the phenomenon’s four overlapping principles: conceptual, political, relational and expressional. The concluding remarks problematise policy-centrism as an emerging phenomenon in the new innovation policy research context.

Scientific evolutionary pathways: Identifying and visualizing relationships for scientific topics

Whereas traditional science maps emphasize citation statistics and static relationships, this paper presents a term‐based method to identify and visualize the evolutionary pathways of scientific topics in a series of time slices. First, we create a data preprocessing model for accurate term cleaning, consolidating, and clustering. Then we construct a simulated data streaming function and introduce a learning process to train a relationship identification function to adapt to changing environments in real time, where relationships of topic evolution, fusion, death, and novelty are identified. The main result of the method is a map of scientific evolutionary pathways. The visual routines provide a way to indicate the interactions among scientific subjects and a version in a series of time slices helps further illustrate such evolutionary pathways in detail. The detailed outline offers sufficient statistical information to delve into scientific topics and routines and then helps address meaningful insights with the assistance of expert knowledge. This empirical study focuses on scientific proposals granted by the United States National Science Foundation, and demonstrates the feasibility and reliability. Our method could be widely applied to a range of science, technology, and innovation policy research, and offer insight into the evolutionary pathways of scientific activities.

Opportunity from crisis: a common agenda for higher education and science, technology and innovation policy research

This paper makes a plea for the construction of a common agenda for higher education and science, technology and innovation (STI) policy research. The public higher education and research sector in all countries is currently in the grip of several challenges arising from increased accountability, internationalization and in some cases dwindling resources. Even as the sector is struggling to come to grips with these new developments, policy-makers the world over are being exhorted that their best route to sustainable economic development is investment in higher education and research. Scholars in STI policy and higher education research currently address these issues separately. This paper argues that a joint research effort from both these communities would push the research frontier further for each respective field and improve the evidence base for policy.

National Innovation Policies in the EU: A Fuzzy-Set Analysis

This paper argues that innovation policy research can benefit from utilizing new research methods as they might lead to different policy recommendations. It demonstrates this by using a set-theoretic fsQCA method to analyse the data on innovation policies in the European Union (EU). It shows that the use of correlation-based statistical methods is not appropriate for the evaluation of innovation policies due to their causally complex nature that correlational statistical methods cannot unravel. This paper demonstrates this by focusing on the special importance of linkages among actors and innovation commercialisation through entrepreneurship and the notion that they represent a necessary condition for innovation success. Results confirm that the single factor of Linkages & entrepreneurship is the necessary condition for innovation success, thus emphasizing the importance of an open innovation framework for innovation policy-making. Results also show three combinations of sufficient conditions (but no single factor) lead to innovation success. They confirm the causal complexity of innovation policy and confirm that using different research methods will lead to different policy recommendations

実社会との関係形成で変化するロボット研究の現状

Robotic study has become more diverse and wide as the relation of the robot and the real world has deepened in the recent years. This paper surveys an overview of the entire aspect concerning robotic study from past till present. We show that it offers useful information to all robotic researchers who are looking for their next work theme and also to research funding agencies which are planning to distribute their resources. All publications, 53,500 in total, on the robotic study has been extracted from three databases provided by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI). A citation network of these databases, consisting of 34,948 nodes, has been created using the Academic Landscape Visualization Tool which was developed by the University of Tokyo Innovation Policy Research Center. We conduct an analysis of the network on its centrality, cluster and chronological growth. It is indicated that the current robotic study is composed of four major clusters. These clusters also reveal that their growth correlates with the relation of the robot and their real world use. We further analyze nine smaller clusters which are young in the average year, to find out their growth potential. In addition, we divide four major clusters into sub-clusters to investigate the details. As a result, we identify the robotic research fields, which are recently growing and also in which Japan is strong or weak.

Innovation and competitiveness: a review

Increasing interest has been shown by governments in maintaining the competitiveness of their economies by the use of policies designed to encourage advances in science and technohgy, and the adoption of new tachniques by industry. This paper is the result of a literature review and a sumvey of researchers on the concepts of innovation and competitiveness, the relationships between them and the efficiency ofpolicies to promote them. Those policies an considered in the context of alternative economic perspectives, as is the (rather limited) empirical euidence available. Conclusions are drawn on the current stab of the art of innovation policy research.