scholarly journals The Choice of Innovation Policy Instruments

2019 ◽  
pp. 212-228
Author(s):  
Susana Borrás ◽  
Charles Edquist
Keyword(s):  
Innovation Policy ◽  
Innovation System ◽  
Policy Instruments ◽  
The Political ◽  
Public Agencies ◽  
Instrument Choice ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Policy Mixes

The purpose of this chapter is to discuss the different types of instruments of innovation policy, to examine how governments and public agencies in different countries and different times have used these instruments differently, to explore the political nature of instrument choice and design (and associated issues), and to elaborate a set of criteria for the selection and design of the instruments in relation to the formulation of holistic innovation policy. The chapter argues that innovation policy instruments must be designed and combined into mixes that address the problems of the innovation system. These mixes are often called ‘policy mixes’, though we prefer the term ‘instrument mix’. The wide combination of instruments into such mixes is what makes innovation policy ‘holistic’.

Regional Innovation Systems: Finland’s Experience

2012 ◽  
pp. 51-63
Author(s):  
V. Pchelintsev
Keyword(s):  
Systems Approach ◽  
Innovation Policy ◽  
Regional Scale ◽  
Innovation System ◽  
Policy Instruments ◽  
Innovation Systems ◽  
Regional Innovation Systems ◽  
Regional Innovation ◽  
Non Local ◽  
Innovation Policies

The paper examines governmental strategies, main actors and instruments of innovation policies shaping innovation-driven economy in Finland, with particular attention to the regional scale. The analysis focuses on how the regional innovation systems approach became a framework for the design of innovation policies. An innovation system involves cooperation between firms and knowledge creating and diffusing organizations, – such as universities, colleges, training organizations, R&D-institutes, technology transfer agencies. Innovations are considered as interactive learning process. Cooperation and interaction between regional/local and national/international actors is necessary to combine both local and non-local knowledge, skills and competences. The key elements of the policy environment, as well as implementation of the main regional innovation policy instruments – the Centers of Expertise Programme and Regional Centre Programme – are described.

Public Financing of Early-Stage Innovations

2019 ◽  
pp. 187-211
Author(s):  
Susana Borrás ◽  
Charles Edquist
Keyword(s):  
Early Stage ◽  
Innovation System ◽  
Policy Instruments ◽  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
The State ◽  
Public Financing ◽  
Public Agencies ◽  
Risk Capital ◽  
Public Intervention ◽  
Innovation Processes

Financing innovation processes is one of the crucial activities for developing commercially successful products and processes (innovations) and to facilitate their diffusion in the innovation system. This chapter addresses the rationales for public intervention, i.e. in which situations policy should be pursued in the field of financing. The chapter identifies a number of policy instruments for financing innovations that are available by the state, and which public agencies use for funding early-stage innovation. The chapter also describes the provision of risk capital by the Swedish state. This case describes a situation where unintended consequences of the policy pursued in Sweden led to the non-fulfilment of the additionality condition. We also describe how this mistake has begun to be resolved after discussions in the Swedish National Innovation Council. The chapter concludes with a number of important issues with regard to public financing of innovations.

Knowledge Production and R&D

2019 ◽  
pp. 55-82
Author(s):  
Susana Borrás ◽  
Charles Edquist
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Research Policy ◽  
Innovation Policy ◽  
Innovation System ◽  
Policy Instruments ◽  
Innovation Process ◽  
Technical Knowledge ◽  
Design Phase

Who produces scientific and technical knowledge these days? What type of knowledge is being produced, and for what purposes? This chapter studies the role of public policy in knowledge production (especially R&D activities) relevant for the innovation process from a perspective of innovation systems. It identifies four typical policy-related obstacles and barriers related to knowledge production in an innovation system. Next, it elaborates a set of overall criteria for the selection and design of relevant policy instruments addressing those unbalances. Most importantly, the chapter argues that in most countries innovation policy continues to be subsumed under research policy. An holistic and problem-oriented innovation policy requires that innovation policy and research policy are separated from each other in the design phase—but it must be ensured that they support each other when implemented (in the same way as many other policy areas have to be coordinated with each other).

Interaction and Networking

2019 ◽  
pp. 145-165
Author(s):  
Susana Borrás ◽  
Charles Edquist
Keyword(s):  
Systems Approach ◽  
Innovation Policy ◽  
Innovation System ◽  
Policy Instruments ◽  
Innovation Systems ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Scholarly Literature ◽  
Theoretical Context ◽  
Conceptual Clarification

Innovation systems cannot be conceptualized without understanding the interactions between different actors in the system. These interactions take many different forms. The scholarly literature has studied them with broad or narrow notions. This chapter aims at providing an encompassing view of these different phenomena, putting them directly into the theoretical context of the innovation systems approach. This is done not only for the sake of conceptual clarification, but above all for identifying the concrete obstacles and deficiencies associated with these interactions that might plague the innovation system. This serves as the basis for distinguishing and classifying the wide diversity of network-oriented innovation policy instruments that governments have deployed through time. Just as in other chapters of this book, the unintended negative consequences created by the application of these instruments are also examined. Finally, the chapter puts forward a set of criteria for the design and redesign of these instruments.

scholarly journals Value Chains for Industrial Biotechnology in the Bioeconomy-Innovation System Analysis

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
pp. 2435 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sven Wydra
Keyword(s):  
System Analysis ◽  
Innovation Policy ◽  
Innovation System ◽  
Policy Instruments ◽  
Innovation Systems ◽  
Market Condition ◽  
Value Chains ◽  
Industrial Biotechnology ◽  
Market Formation ◽  
Address System

Industrial Biotechnology (IB) is considered as a key technology with a strong potential to generate new growth, spur innovation, increase productivity, and tackle environmental and climate challenges. Industrial Biotechnology is applied in many segments of the bioeconomy ranging from chemicals, biofuels, bioenergy, bio-based plastics, and other biomaterials. However, the segments differ profoundly regarding volume, price, type, and amount of needed feedstock, market condition, societal contributions as well as maturity, etc. This article aims to analyse a set of five different value chains in the technological innovation system (TIS) framework in order to derive adequate policy conclusions. Hereby, we focus on quite distinctive value chains to take into account the high heterogeneity of biotechnological applications. The analysis points out that policy maker have to take into account the fundamental differences in the innovation systems and to implement differentiated innovation policy to address system weaknesses. In particular, market formation is often the key bottleneck innovation systems, but different policy instruments for various application segments needed.

Change of Organizations

2019 ◽  
pp. 131-144
Author(s):  
Susana Borrás ◽  
Charles Edquist
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Organizational Change ◽  
Innovation Policy ◽  
Innovation System ◽  
Policy Instruments ◽  
Conceptual Basis ◽  
System A ◽  
Innovation Dynamics ◽  
Key Issues

Organizations are crucial elements in innovation systems. Yet, their role is so ubiquitous that it is difficult to grasp and to examine all kinds of organization that are present in an innovation system. The purpose of this chapter is to define the conceptual basis of innovation policy in relation to the role of organizations, looking in particular at the roles of entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship as examples of organizational change. In so doing, this chapter aims at making three contributions. Firstly, it defines the roles of entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship in the innovation system, a crucial topic in understanding innovation dynamics and its blurring boundaries. Secondly, it identifies some common entrepreneurship- and intrapreneurship-related obstacles and barriers in the innovation system, and examines the policy instruments to solve or mitigate them. Thirdly, it discusses the limits of public policy and suggests key issues in the design of innovation policy.

National Planning and Local Technology Zones: Experimental Governance in China's Torch Programme

2013 ◽  
Vol 216 ◽  
pp. 896-919 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sebastian Heilmann ◽  
Lea Shih ◽  
Andreas Hofem
Keyword(s):  
Innovation Policy ◽  
Innovation System ◽  
High Technology ◽  
Top Down ◽  
National Programme ◽  
Local Implementation ◽  
National Planning ◽  
Innovative Potential ◽  
Organizational Patterns ◽  
Definition Of

AbstractMany studies raise doubts about the effectiveness of the institutions, programmes and instruments that shape the Chinese national innovation system. This article scrutinizes central–local interactions in the national Torch Programme that has governed a large group of high-technology zones since 1988. The Torch Programme's procedural practices challenge widely shared assumptions about the dirigiste character of Chinese innovation policy. It combines centralized definition of programme objectives with extensive local implementation experiments. As three case studies demonstrate, bottom-up policy innovations are effectively fed back into national programme adjustments and into horizontal policy diffusion. The array of organizational patterns and promotional instruments that emerges from competitive “experimentation under the shadow of hierarchy” (ESH) goes way beyond what could have been initiated from top down. We hypothesize that the procedural strengths displayed in the Torch Programme may provide better indicators of future innovative potential in China's high-technology zones than retrospective statistical indices and benchmarks that are derived from OECD experience.

Canadian Exceptionalism: Explaining Differences over Time in Provincial and Federal Voter Turnout

2001 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 299-319 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donley T. Studlar
Keyword(s):  
Regression Analysis ◽  
Population Density ◽  
Multiple Regression Analysis ◽  
Voter Turnout ◽  
The Political ◽  
Federal Level ◽  
Industrial Democracies ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Cross National

Canada is unusual among advanced industrial democracies in having some provinces which regularly have greater voter turnouts for provincial than for federal elections. Provincial and federal turnouts by province in Canada are analyzed for the 1945-1998 period using multiple regression analysis, both for each set of elections and by comparing differences between the two. Federal turnout has declined over the years but provincial turnout appears to have increased slightly. Although the effects found here largely confirm previous findings about the relative effects of different types of variables found for the Canadian federal level only, several of the political explanations previously supported in cross-national research find less support. Instead, region, population density, months since the last federal or provincial election, and season of the year generally have greater and sometimes more consistent effects. This suggests the need for more studies of turnout in democracies at sub-central levels.

Instruments of Government: Perceptions and Contexts

1989 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen H. Linder ◽  
B. Guy Peters
Keyword(s):  
National Policy ◽  
Policy Instruments ◽  
Problem Situation ◽  
Organizational Setting ◽  
Indirect Methods ◽  
Instrument Choice ◽  
Policy Goals ◽  
Provision Of Services ◽  
Policy Style ◽  
Government Provision

ABSTRACTGovernment uses a wide variety of instruments to reach its policy goals, ranging from indirect methods, such as moral suasion and cash inducements, to more direct ones involving government provision of services. Although there has been a fair amount of writing on the nature and use of various policy instruments, there is very little work on either the meaning ascribed to these instruments by the decisionmakers who use them (or the experts who design them) or the processes by which some come to be favored over others. Characteristics of the political system, such as national policy style, the organizational setting of the decisionmaker, and the problem situation are all likely to have some influence over the choice of instruments. The relative impact of these variables, however, is likely to be mediated by subjective factors linked to cognition. Perceptions of the proper ‘tool to do the job’ intervenes between context and choice in a complex way. Efforts to account for variation in instrument choice, then, must focus not only on macro level variables but on micro ones as well.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document