Science, Technology And Innovation Policy Research Articles

Institutionalizing foresight in science, technology, and innovation in sub‐Saharan Africa

AbstractMotivationForesight is increasingly being institutionalized and used in science, technology and innovation (STI) policy processes around the world. Foresight is a toolbox to help decision‐makers generate intelligence about future scientific and technological advances and to frame long‐term STI policy goals and rationales. Foresight can be used to inform policy to steer research and innovation (R&I) towards attaining sustainable development goals. Yet, foresight is not institutionalized and used in sub‐Saharan Africa (SSA) at a time when many governments are formulating new STI policies and some of their science granting councils (SGCs) are setting R&I priorities.PurposeThis exploratory study is about challenges and opportunities of institutionalizing STI foresight in SSA. It identifies ways of institutionalizing and using STI foresight.Methods and approachA literature review, bibliometric analysis, interviews, an online survey, and focus group discussions were conducted to identify challenges to, and lessons for, institutionalizing STI foresight in SSA. The literature identified good practices for institutionalizing STI foresight in selected developed countries, to draw lessons for SSA.FindingsWhile academic research on STI foresight and related topics is increasing, there is very limited foresight practice in STI policy processes in SSA. This is mainly owing to low awareness of STI foresight, weak technical capacity, and generally a lack of foresight culture in STI policy‐making in the region.Policy implicationsBuilding capacity within governments and establishing a community of practice in STI foresight may help improve the quality and effectiveness of STI policy in SSA. It may enable institutions such as science granting councils (SGCs) to make informed funding decisions, targeting scarce resources at priority research and innovation. Overall, building STI foresight literacy and skills, as well as establishing designated offices for STI foresight, supported by the knowledge to select and adapt foresight tools, will result in improved STI policy‐making in SSA.

The policy is dead, long live the policy—Revealing science, technology, and innovation policy priorities and government transitions via network analysis

Abstract Each government has priorities for science, technology, and innovation policies (STIP). How can we identify the changing or reinforced STIP research priorities induced by government transitions? This study aims to unveil the STIP changing structure in the public funding research call contents in Colombia from 2007 to 2022, applying a co-word and network analysis approach to 389 funding research calls. We showed each government’s changing distribution of the betweenness centrality of 334 fields from Health, Life, Physical, and Social Sciences. We found that STIP priorities are getting denser and more diverse in terms of research fields. Despite this complexity, just 14 fields of Life, Physical, and Social Sciences, such as drug discovery, general business, management & accounting, and nature and landscape conservation, maintained their higher strategic relevance despite the government in office. This study maps the short and long-term focus of STIP regardless of the changing political tide inherent in democratic countries.

Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) and Startup Ecosystem in Vietnam

Research on science, technology and innovation policy (STI policy) in Vietnam has mainly focused on the role of government and business—the two main groups of social actors shaping the development of the Government. From the cultural perspective of STI policy, the article analyses the interactions between four policy cultures representing four groups of social actors (academic, state, business and civil society) that affect the formation and development of STI policy in Vietnam through four stages of development. From there, the article provides a general picture of the role of four groups of policy actors involved in the policymaking process, considering aspects including: (a) the nature of the policy; (b) policy objectives; (c) policy makers; (d) policy instruments; (e) policy specificity and (f) group of agents representing policy culture. Next, the article analyses the formation and development of an innovation-based startup ecosystem that represents the concerns of a third policy culture—an economic policy culture. Finally, the article proposes some initial recommendations to promote the interaction between the components of the STI ecosystem, especially those related to the innovation-based startup ecosystem.

Bringing Fences Down: The Role of Critical Innovation Studies in Engaging STS with Innovation and the Contribution of Benoît Godin

Innovation has constituted a subject of key interest for quite some time. However, only a few fields and scholars have embraced the challenge of finding ways to deconstruct our contemporary society’s most recurrent mantra. Questioning the “pro-innovation bias”, the assumption that innovation “is always good” and without undesirable consequences, is what critical studies of innovation (as a new research agenda) are trying to achieve. These critical studies might redeem the study of innovation for the STS interdisciplinary field by merging different critical perspectives. This emerging niche aims to reach beyond the techno-economic understanding of innovation, pointing a path of learning along cross-disciplinary and more critical, historical, and qualitative-based approaches to innovation phenomena – adopting as our example here the intellectual legacy of Benoît Godin (1958–2021). Godin’s work, together with other colleagues, opens up many avenues for engaging STS with innovation, and the appeal for a much-needed critical stance on science, technology and innovation (STI) ‘political’ phenomena – analysing discourses, policy narrative(s), theories, dissecting different kinds of models, etc. Our aim is to demonstrate how critical innovation study could be crucial and fascinating to an STS scholar, adopting as reference the intellectual work of Benoît Godin – whose lessons teach us how to work on a historical and discursive methodology – that studies STI policies by embracing their intellectual and conceptual histories.

The process of paradigm change: the rise of guided innovation in China

This article offers a new framework for understanding the beliefs behind science, technology and innovation (STI) policy. Building on recent research that has identified several distinct ‘policy paradigms’ in STI policy, it explains how these paradigms may be understood as hierarchical belief systems, and it identifies different variants within each paradigm. The article then illuminates one means through which countries may transition from one paradigm to another in this domain, focusing on the international diffusion of the ‘innovation systems policy’ paradigm after the 1980s. The article emphasizes how local ideology regarding state intervention in the economy shapes how the new paradigm is localized in the receiving state. To probe the plausibility of this theory, the article presents an in-depth case study focused on China’s reception and localization of the innovation systems policy paradigm in recent decades.

Evolution of the STIP literature: discovering the growing role of innovation governance concepts

Abstract The evolution of science, technology, and innovation Policy (STIP) studies has been marked by the emergence and decline of various intellectual streams regarding the innovation process and the role of government. These streams are known as STIP generations or paradigms and have undergone changes in perspective on innovation across different historical periods. This article aims to provide a clear understanding of how the themes explored in STIP studies have evolved over different STIP generations. To this end, a dataset of the most cited research documents from 1975 to 2022 was studied using a mix of bibliometric and thematic analyses. The result reveals that the STIP literature has undergone three distinct but interrelated dimensions of evolution: the nature and process of innovation have shifted from a simple linear process to an interactive and complex one; the innovation agenda has expanded to include economic, social, and environmental goals; and perspectives on the governance of innovation have shifted from a centralized mode to a participatory and reflexive one. The conceptual framework developed in this research compares STIP generations in terms of the aforementioned three dimensions and shows that recent intellectual generations have a broader perspective than early generations across all three dimensions.

The Co-Evolution of India’s Policy on Science, Technology, and Innovation with University Education: The Need for Innovation in Higher Educational Institutions

Innovation-focused education and research have been identified as critical contributors to enhancing the innovative behaviour of individuals, organisations, and economies. Therefore, Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs) embrace innovations to transform teaching, research, and knowledge transfer that impact economic and social objectives. The research objective of this study is to shed light on India’s needs for its higher education and innovation policies to develop faster growth and provide lessons on what it is doing right. For this, we study the gaps in the two policies: Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy (STIP) and National Educational Policies (NEP) applicable to HEIs. This study uses content analysis of the policies, with two experts’ opinions on the evolution of the policies. It finds that the Indian government has consciously striven to adopt new developments, urgently needing to improve infrastructural facilities for knowledge-driven innovation. Yet, fostering private industry’s role in innovation has not been adequate. The study concluded that policymakers need to collaborate with all the players for focused education and research, resulting in responsible innovation.

Innovation and Development in Sub-Sahara Africa: The Role of Institutional Development and Inter Alia

Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) is gradually seen by countries in Sub-Sahara African as the engine for economic growth and general uplifting of the standard of living. As a result, Innovation is embraced but institutional weaknesses hinder the required outcome. This paper's aim is to examine the connection between innovation and development in sub-Saharan Africa while considering the function of institutes and other elements. This is in light of the fact that institutions act as the lubricant for progress. The Middle East and North Africa are not included in the scope of the paper, which largely focuses on sub-Saharan African nations. Some western nations and developing economies are, nonetheless, occasionally used as comparison points. We analyze data from reputable organizations like the World Bank, Polity IV, and considering a gauge of innovation and GDP per capita, the quantity of scientific publications published as a proxy for development, the Economic Freedom of the World Project will evaluate a panel of 22 economies in sub-Saharan Africa (EFW). Our results from the POLS and GMM IV regression show, among other things, that innovation has a favorable impact on the development of Africa, even though the impact looks insignificant. Although the majority of the nations in the county have established institutional frameworks for science, technology, and innovation (STI), evidence suggests that the slow rate at which innovation contributes to national development is due to obstacles in the design and implementation of STI policies. The outcome highlights the region's little advancement in the technology-capability indicators. To establish and execute STI policies in the region, a lot more has to be done in the area of collaboration between public entities and parastatals.

Analysis of Open Science Policy Recommendations Proposed in India’s 5th Science, Technology & Innovation Policy Draft

One of the core principles of science is to aid socio-economic growth. Open science is a movement that reinforces the primacy of science in the direction of economic and social welfare. UNESCO's recommendation on open science aims to provide an international framework for open science policy and practice. It endorses unrestricted access to scholarly publications and data, the use of digital technologies to drive scientific processes, more collaboration and cooperation among the actors in the scientific ecosystem, sharing of research infrastructure, acknowledgment of diverse knowledge systems, and science for society. Open science could enable a productive science ecosystem in global south countries through efficient knowledge circulation, resource sharing, and collaboration. Analysis of open science policy from a global south country can provide valuable insights. India is preparing to adopt an open science framework recommended in the 5th Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy (STIP) draft, released in December 2020. The STIP draft recommends open access to articles and research data from publicly funded projects, access to research infrastructure beyond the boundary of academic and research institutions, strengthening of Indian journals, and open educational resources. However, the draft lacks an exhaustive implementation plan. The draft falls short in devising strategies to foster collaboration between actors of the STI ecosystem, the inclusion of traditional knowledge systems, and society's role in knowledge creation processes. The science policymakers and advisers of the Department of Science and Technology and the government of India should probe these areas to develop a more effective and inclusive open science framework.

Analyzing India’s Science and Technology Policy – A Comparative Perspective

The Government of India has been formulating science policies since the 1950s, with the latest version of the policy formulated in 2020. The paper aims to understand the extent to which the 2020 Science Technology and Innovation Policy (STIP) addresses the critiques and limitations of its predecessor policy launched in 2013.Therefore, this paper compares the 2020 STIP document to the 2013 version across essential parameters such as the role of innovation and inclusivity, focus on informality, support for research and others. The paper also brings in global comparison by elaborating on science policies of Brazil and South Africa.

Transition to the Fourth Industrial Revolution: Africa’s Science, Technology and Innovation Framework and Indigenous Knowledge Systems

Abstract Despite elaborate efforts at Science Technology and Innovation (STI) policy enunciation, Africa has yet to optimally engage with how best to locate and position Indigenous or traditional knowledge (IK/TK) and its stakeholders in the new and emergent technological dynamics often designated as the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) and its bioeconomy components. Given the disconnect over IK/TK systems in African STI policy instruments, the paper argues for a deliberate Indigenous knowledge sensitive continental STI strategy without excluding integral opportunities in other realms such as intellectual property. Such approach to STI is necessary to ensure that Africa is well positioned to leverage and optimise its factor endowments in Indigenous knowledge and underlying systems for its production. Indigenous knowledge is crucial for continental Africa’s participation and ability to benefit from all facets of knowledge production under the 4IR innovation ecosystem. The significance of Indigenous knowledge and its ramification for STI in Africa continues to resonate in the context of the push for equitable access to the benefits of science, technology and innovation especially taking into account the bioeconomy adjunct of the 4IR.

Public Engagement Improvement in STI Policies: Challenges and Solutions

Studies show that actors who are directly involved with science, technology and innovation (STI), such as scientists and managers, are more likely to participate. Therefore, policy documents, as an important guiding factor, need to emphasize the engagement of various stakeholders. On the other hand, due to the need for innovative models in public engagement, social innovation has provided new ways to promote it. Therefore, this study aims to strengthen public engagement in STI policies through social innovation in Iran. In order to data gathering, questionnaires, interviews, document analysis and literature review were used in different stages of the research. In the first step, after interviewing experts on the dimensions and components of public engagement in STI, in the context of macro-policy documents, a model was extracted using thematic analysis and fuzzy delphi techniques. Then, in the second step, this study identified the statements related to public engagement in STI in macro-policy documents using quantitative content analysis, and thus the degree of attention to public engagement in STI macro-policy documents was determined. In the next step, this study sought to find solutions to its weaknesses in STI by examining the opinions of knowledgeable people about public engagement methods. Then, these solutions were evaluated in terms of their relevance to the Iranian context and social innovativeness, and finally, the selected solutions were ranked by Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method.

Strengthening top–down design? Mapping science, technology and innovation policy developments in China in the age of COVID-19

ABSTRACT In the COVID-19 era, science, technology and innovation (STI) dynamics witness fundamental changes as the global expansion of government mission-oriented STI policies emphasises political stability, environmental sustainability and social inclusiveness. How does this global directionality affect China, a country known for its strong leadership in setting strategic STI policy directions? By performing a content analysis of 1,268 STI policies issued by the Chinese government before and after the pandemic started in 2020, we document the country’s latest attempts of top–down design of STI dynamics that use import and export barriers to restrict the flows of STI activities while crack down on the country’s effervescent STI scene to control what Chinese enterprises see and do, at both the national and local government levels. This increasing protectionist and interventionist tendency is a legacy of the U.S.-China trade war era when China was forced to ensure that its domestic technological progress could continue independently of the global market. However, to achieve such independence, we suggest that the country needs to restructure its demand-side, supply-side and environmental-side STI policy instruments to create a more efficient market space for techno-entrepreneurship, as it is hard to shore up political control without damping bottom–up entrepreneurial vigour.

The Status of Science, Technology and Innovation in Africa

‘Science’ has for long been advocated as a key driver of Africa’s post-independence modernisation. This project featured strongly in the Organization of African Unit Lagos Plan of Action of 1980 that called for governments to mobilise 1% of GDP towards building their scientific and technological capabilities. The 1% goal was duly re-affirmed at the African Union Ministers’ Conference of 2003, in Africa’s Science and Technology Consolidated Plan of Action 2005, and in the 2014 Science, Technology and Innovation Strategy for Africa. The contribution presents a high-level assessment of the extent to which these various efforts are revealed in the present continent-wide status of science, technology and innovation (STI). To this end, a high-level appraisal of STI inputs, focus and outputs is assembled. In so doing, the limitations of data and STI indicators must be acknowledged. While there are signs of progress, STI policy has greater rhetorical than operational outcome, raising concerns for African states’ capability to attain the SDGs and shape their participation in the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Policy Imperatives for African Science, Technology and Innovation: An Analysis of Namibia and South Africa

The potential that Africa holds in contributing to globally competitive knowledge generation is undeniable. The challenges however, remain insurmountable to ensure that prioritised initiatives are implemented and realised. The issue of science, technology and innovation (STI) interventions as critical enablers could transform the overall socio-economic conditions immensely. These STI interventions need attention beyond policy formulation but should place more emphasis on implementation. This paper considers the applicability of African Union’s Science, Technology and Innovation Strategy for Africa (STISA) 2024 policy framework on Namibia and South Africa. A Critical Theory perspective is employed as a theoretical approach to the discourse to offer a scholarly reflection on public policy initiatives which relate to STI for Namibia and South Africa. It is clear that adhering to the 1% threshold recommended by the AU policy STISA 2024 remains a difficult task to achieve. In the case of Namibia, its STI system requires time to mature and strengthen its institutional capacity. For South Africa, it is necessary to ensure that STI policy is able to broaden involvement for marginalised communities in rural and peri-urban spaces. The paper concludes with a consolidation of key features of the discourse as embedded in the Critical Theory for STI interventions. The essence is to maintain societal interest and ensure that new value systems on STI are embraced and maintained.

Innovation models and interdisciplinarity in science, technology and innovation policy in Costa Rica

PurposeThis paper aims to analyse innovation models and interdisciplinarity in science, technology and innovation (STI) policy in Costa Rica between 2015 and 2021. The core focus is to evaluate the public policy in light of the groundwork that sustains the designed and proposed actions.Design/methodology/approachThe authors applied a qualitative approach to build a set of dimensions and conducted content-analysis of selected documents. The analysis encompasses all current STI public policy documents in Costa Rica, including the planning instruments of the Central Government and the National Policy on STI.FindingsThe main findings show that STI policy in Costa Rica is based on different innovation models, but the projects and instruments themselves show the predominance of the reductionist model. Innovation receives a residual role. In turn, interdisciplinarity is based on the concept of convergence, which limits disciplinary collaboration to the natural, physical and engineering sciences, minimising contributions from other fields of knowledge to an instrumental role in innovation processes.Practical implicationsThe authors conclude that the interlinkage between open innovation models, the participation of diverse societal actors and the inclusion of an interdisciplinary perspective leads to inclusive and more democratic public policy, allowing more sectors and organisations to benefit from innovation processes. This would imply a greater reach and impact of the policy, conditions that translate into innovation achievements and a better return on public investment.Originality/valueThis paper contributes to current discussions on STI policy by studying the implications of the link among policies, innovation models and interdisciplinarity.

METHODOLOGICAL GUIDELINES FOR THE STI ROADMAP DEVELOPMENT TO ACHIEVE THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS OF UKRAINE

The object of research is the use of science, technology and innovation (STI) to achieve the national Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Purpose: developing the methodological guidelines for the STI roadmap formation to achieve the national SDGs as a strategic tool for aligning STI policy with national development policy; mobilizing the STI potential to restore the Ukraine's economy development from the effects of the Russian Federation's aggressive war against Ukraine. Methods: foresight research, literature analysis, business and information analytics, intellectual property analytics. Work results: 1. Guidelines for developing the roadmap for the STI use to achieve the national SDGs have been developed, including six sequential steps: (1) defining the objectives, specific targets and scope of the STI Roadmap for SDGs; (2) analysis of the current situation and new trends in the STI sphere; (3) developing a vision, objectives and priorities for the STI use to achieve SDGs; (4) assessment of alternative pathways; (5) development of a comprehensive STI roadmap for SDGs; (6) establishing a system for monitoring and evaluating progress in implementing the STI Roadmap. 2. The draft list of scientific and technical and innovative activity priority directions for the SDGs achievement based on the methodical recommendations for defining the scientific and technical and innovative activity priority directions was formed 3. The form of passports to analyze the current situation and new trends in STI according the SDG targets have been developed. Scope of the results application: the STI sphere normative-legal regulation; developing the drafts of smart specialization research and innovation strategies for pilot regions. Conclusions and prospects for further explorations. The presented methodological recommendations include substantiation of the vision, tasks and priorities of STI system development to achieve the national SDG targets, based on diagnostics of STI strengths and weaknesses as well as the results of discussing the relevant measures of national strategic documents with policies and tools to stimulate research and innovation with stakeholders from government, business and research communities, etc. Further research should focus on developing the STI roadmap to achieve the national SDG targets, developing indicators for monitoring and evaluating progress in implementing the STI roadmap.

On the syndemic nature of crises: A Freeman perspective

In this paper we draw a parallel between the insights developed within the framework of the current COVID-19 health crisis and the views and insights developed with respect to the long term environmental crisis, the implications for science, technology and innovation (STI) policy, Christopher Freeman analyzed already in the early 90′s. With at the time of writing, the COVID-19 pandemic entering in many countries a third wave with a very differentiated implementation path of vaccination across rich and poor countries, drawing such a parallel remains of course a relatively speculative exercise. Nevertheless, based on the available evidence of the first wave of the pandemic, we feel confident that some lessons from the current health crisis and its parallels with the long-term environmental crisis can be drawn. The COVID-19 pandemic has also been described as a “syndemic”: a term popular in medical anthropology which marries the concept of ‘synergy’ with ‘epidemic’ and provides conceptually an interesting background for these posthumous Freeman reflections on crises. The COVID-19 crisis affects citizens in very different and disproportionate ways. It results not only in rising structural inequalities among social groups and classes, but also among generations. In the paper, we focus on the growing inequality within two particular groups: youngsters and the impact of COVID-19 on learning and the organization of education; and as mirror picture, the elderly many of whom witnessed despite strict confinement in long-term care facilities, high mortality following the COVID-19 outbreak. From a Freeman perspective, these inequality consequences of the current COVID-19 health crisis call for new social STI policies: for a new “corona version” of inclusion versus exclusion.

Predicting innovative firms using web mining and deep learning.

Evidence-based STI (science, technology, and innovation) policy making requires accurate indicators of innovation in order to promote economic growth. However, traditional indicators from patents and questionnaire-based surveys often lack coverage, granularity as well as timeliness and may involve high data collection costs, especially when conducted at a large scale. Consequently, they struggle to provide policy makers and scientists with the full picture of the current state of the innovation system. In this paper, we propose a first approach on generating web-based innovation indicators which may have the potential to overcome some of the shortcomings of traditional indicators. Specifically, we develop a method to identify product innovator firms at a large scale and very low costs. We use traditional firm-level indicators from a questionnaire-based innovation survey (German Community Innovation Survey) to train an artificial neural network classification model on labelled (product innovator/no product innovator) web texts of surveyed firms. Subsequently, we apply this classification model to the web texts of hundreds of thousands of firms in Germany to predict whether they are product innovators or not. We then compare these predictions to firm-level patent statistics, survey extrapolation benchmark data, and regional innovation indicators. The results show that our approach produces reliable predictions and has the potential to be a valuable and highly cost-efficient addition to the existing set of innovation indicators, especially due to its coverage and regional granularity.

The Impact of Interplay between Formal and Informal Institutions on Innovation Performance: Evidence from CEECs

Formal and informal institutions matter in the context of the innovation performance of Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs). The purpose of the research was to investigate whether the interplay between formal and informal institutions has a positive, negative or neutral impact on the innovation performance of CEECs, and if formal or informal institutions alone also have a positive, negative or neutral influence on the innovation performance of CEECs. The research is based on informal institutions of CEECs such as trust, traditions, customs, creativity or cooperation, and formal institutions of CEECs such as law, formal rules, or science, technology and innovation policy (STIP). The research methodology focuses on secondary statistical data from 18,808 surveys from the European Social Survey Round 9 (2018) edition 2.0 for informal institutions and from 1090 innovation policies of European Commission and OECD STIP Compass and 414,073 notices of awarded tenders of the European Union Tenders Electronic Daily for formal institutions. Innovation performance was measured by the Summary Innovation Index (SII) of the European Innovation Scoreboard 2019. The findings show that informal institutions such as trust in others, trust in the legal system, the importance of following traditions and customs or cooperation among citizens of CEECs, as well as interplay between informal institutions such as trust in the legal system and formal institutions such as obedience to rules among citizens of CEECs have a negative impact on the innovation performance of the national economies of CEECs. Meanwhile, the variety of policy theme areas and creativity among citizens of CEECs have a positive impact on the innovation performance of the national economies of CEECs.