Conference Agenda

This paper explores the need, challenges and opportunities for STI research and practice to advance the cross-fertilization of innovation, governance and strategic public management studies. It argues that the effective implementation of emerging forms of STI policy – missionoriented, transformative and Partnerships for Regional Innovation – relies on the ability of public managers to ‘embed experimentalism’ (EE) in their operating context. Based on a problematising literature review, the concept of EE is advanced as a unifying framework to analyse and devise forms of managerial deliberation, organisational structures and incentives for collective action that can fit and transform different institutional contexts under conditions of strategic uncertainty. The EE framework and its three hypotheses are then tested in three cases: the US’ DARPA’s operations; China’s Torch programme; and the EU’s RIS3 policy. Overall, this paper aims to open new avenues for STI research and practice to support attempts at tackling urgent societal challenges, such as industrial decarbonisation.

1. Transformational Turn of Science and Technology Policy in Japan

The transformative turn of science and technology policy (Kuhlmann and Rip 2018) have advanced from around 2009 in Japan. The administration changed from one centered on the Liberal Democratic Party to one centered on the Democratic Party in 2009, and amid that the social issues of health and the environment were emphasized as targets in science and technology policy. Thereafter, the administration changed again to an administration centered on the Liberal Democratic Party in 2012, but the approach of science and technology policy to social issues was continued.

In parallel, the Cabinet Office was established for strengthening Cabinet functions, and the Council for Science and Technology Policy (CSTP) was established to support those roles in the science and technology policy. The CSTP comprised the prime minister, various ministers and private-sector members (from industry and academics). Subsequently, in 2014, the jurisdiction of the Cabinet Office was expanded to include innovation and the name of the CSTP was changed to the Council for Science, Technology and Innovation (CSTI). In addition, independent budgetary sources around 50 billion yen annually is secured for the CSTI in the Cabinet Office separated from budgets of related ministries such as the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) (Shiroyama 2018).

2. SIP (Cross-ministerial Strategic Innovation Promotion Program) as MOIP (Mission Oriented Innovation Policy) type Program - Institutional Setting, Recruitment of Program Managers and Changing Nature of Programs

Using the independent budgetary sources in the Cabinet Office, various cross-sectoral innovation programs that may be called Mission Oriented Innovation Policy (MOIP) were established in Japan. For example, the Cross-ministerial Strategic Innovation Promotion Program (SIP) was established in 2014 at the Cabinet Office level, followed by the second phase in 2018 and the third phase in 2023. The SIPs have been aimed at promoting top-down research and development efforts from basic research through to implementation in society in an integrated manner for the purpose of responding to social and important issues.

Regarding SIP, a top-down governance structure was established. A governing board regarding SIP overall was set up directly within the CSTI. Under this board, program directors (PDs) are recruited from outside of government, that is, industry and academia. It is claimed that PDs from outside of government has advantages of substantive knowledge on the topics and long-term commitments, and that bureaucratic coordinating capacity is supplied through the promotion committees with the participation of concerned ministries and agencies for each topic. But there are concerns about the capacity of those PDs because of part-time appointments of PDs and weak support system.

The governance structure of SIP changes responding to changing nature of program from the first phase of SIP to the second phase of SIP and to the third phase of SIP. The focus of the first phase of the SIP from 2018 was on research and development of technology, although they had in mind social issues in a broader sense, such as strengthening competitiveness, addressing environmental issues such as CO2 reduction, and ensuring safety and security. The second phase of SIPs focused on fundamental technologies that bridge cyberspace and physical space, as seen in the following themes: cyberspace infrastructure technology utilizing big data and AI, physical space digital data processing infrastructure, cyber and physical security for IoT society, and technology to realize Society 5.0 utilizing optical and quantum technology. The focus was on fundamental technologies bridging cyberspace and physical space. This is related to the presentation of Society 5.0, which utilizes instruments integrating cyberspace and physical space, as the social vision to be pursued, but there has been a specific focus on individual technological components. But systems, platforms and networks, including institutional, policy and behavioral elements as well as technical elements, have been the main targets in the third phase of SIP. It is clear from themes of each program: building a sustainable food chain; building an integrated healthcare system; building an inclusive community platform; building a platform for learning and working in the post-corona era; building a maritime security platform; building a smart energy management system; building a circular economy system; building a smart disaster prevention network; building a smart infrastructure management system; building a smart mobility platform; and building an ecosystem for fostering innovation in material commercialization. Social implementation is also emphasized in the third phase of SIP (Cabinet Office 2022).

This change in the nature of the programs was also associated with a change in the origin of the PDs. In the first phase of SIP, the ratio of PDs from industry to PDs from academia was 5:6, while in the second phase of SIPs the ratio of PDs from industry to academia was 6:6. In the third phase of SIPs, on the other hand, the ratio of PDs from industry to people from academia was 4:10, with a much higher ratio of PDs from academia. This seems to be due to the fact that in the third phase of SIP, the aspect of responding to social challenges by combining technical and institutional policy and behavioral elements has become stronger, requiring more coordination with wider stakeholders. In addition, as implementation in society was emphasized in the third phase of the SIP focusing on the five dimensions technology, commercialization, systems, social acceptance, and human resources, the main role of the PDs was set as implementation in society different from the roles of research and development management by Program Managers (PMs) below PDs (Cabinet Office 2022). However, the difficulty for those from academia to receive enough support has led to implementation challenges.

3. Discussion from Comparative Perspectives

Three issues of MOIP governance in Japan can be identified through comparison with the EU experience. First issue is the institutional setting and recruitment of coordination capacity. SIP was established under the direct management of the Cabinet Office. Concerning MOIP in the EU, efforts were made on how to link the existing programs of the Directorate-General for Research and Innovation and other Directorate-Generals for specific sectors utilizing the mission framework, while in Japan’s case a framework such as SIP was established, separated from the existing research and development programs of each ministry. In addition, there are several programs at the Cabinet level. Apart from the SIP, the Moonshot Research and Development Program was separately established at the Cabinet level for example. The use of the term “moonshot” seems to have in mind a classic mission highlighting technology, but at the same time this also has in mind the setting of long-term goals looking ahead to the grand challenge of 2050.

These overlapping structure in Japan complicates the coordination issues. In MOIP at the Cabinet level in Japan, the issue remains of how to link the SIP and other program at the Cabinet Office with the research and development programs of each ministry and agency. Also, the issue remains of how to link the multiple MOIPs of SIP and other program such as the Moonshot Research and Development Program.

Second issue is the required capacity for mission management (Borrás, et. al. 2023). In the EU, European Commission bureaucrats are responsible for coordination among sectors as mission managers or deputy mission managers, while in Japan the PDs are sourced externally from industry and academia. Whether to secure this type of inter-organization coordination capacity from within or outside of the government is a choice implying advantages and disadvantages. Furthermore, when interorganizational coordination is managed by officials in governments, issue remains of weather officials in crosscutting sector or officials in targeted sector should be in charge. EU system is interesting in that officials in sectoral DGs are in charge of mission managers and officials in Research and Innovation DG are in charge of deputy mission managers.

Related issue is the comparative advantages and disadvantages of PDs from industry and PD from academic for coordinating capacity. In the case of SIP in Japan, as the scope of coordination expanded, the use of PDs from academia increased. But whether they have appropriate capacity and adequate support need to be checked.

Third issue is the balance between directionality and flexibility. In the literature of MOIP, the principle of clear direction is claimed as an element of MOIP (Mazzucato 2018). But the issue of how to balance between directionality and flexibility which even enable reformulation of mission goals through learning in uncertain environment is important part of managing mission. So it is important to understand the process of reformulation of missions and solutions (Wanzenbo, et. a. 2020) through the analysis of historical development of MOIP programs. The case of SIP program in Japan developing from technology driven program to social issue driven platform program is an interesting example of such realistic development,

Bibliography

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Missions-oriented innovation policy (MOIP) is currently highly esteemed in academic discourse and is gaining further significance. It is perceived as an effective instrument for tackling complex societal challenges and as a crucial tool for achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Although research interest predominantly focuses on the national or supranational level, the concept is also increasingly being applied at the regional or local level.

The importance of the local and regional levels in mission-oriented transformation is increasing, as change needs to happen on the ground—think globally, act locally— and in many countries municipalities and regions have a high level of political autonomy giving them political means and power to implement missions on their own or take joint actions with other municipalities and regions. Since the implementation of MOIP in most countries involves significant political change or paradigm shift, the question arises about its acceptance among the population. Especially in decentralized states like Switzerland, where political participation at the regional and local levels is strong, the acceptance of the population is crucial for such a profound policy reform.

For MOIP to be effective, voluntary collaboration with local stakeholders and the general public is necessary for the design and implementation of MOIP. Thus their acceptance for the MOIP and the concept as such is crucial for the success of it. So far, however, we know very little about the population's perception of MOIP Thus far, it has been primarily regarded as a technocratic instrument and has been used as such. However, this may not suffice for long-term acceptance and effectiveness.

In this paper, we aim to address this research gap by examining the following research questions:

What is the level of public acceptance of MOIP in local governance? Who supports MOIP, who opposes it? How are different aspects of MOIP perceived? What explains these attitudes?

In particular we analyze the following key dimensions/characteristics of a local MOIP and its acceptance by the population:

• Local governance plays a critical role in addressing present societal challenges.

• Local governance is driven by ambitious missions aimed at addressing societal challenges.

• Local governance actively seeks partnerships with various stakeholders, including other public organizations, the private sector, scientific community, and civil society, to effectively fulfill its missions.

• Local governance establishes regulatory frameworks aimed at fostering the development of new solutions by third parties, contingent upon their alignment with the missions of the municipality.

We investigate these questions analyzing a representative population survey with 1000 respondents.

Dynamic capabilities for transformnative innovation policies

ERKKI KARO, TALTECH

RAINER KATTEL, UCL

The challenges of sustainable development tend to be approached through the lens of innovation: complex societal challenges require different forms of innovations (technological, social, institutional) that can ideally also provide new avenues for broader socio-economic development. This gives modern day innovation debates a clear demand and direction. There is also a growing consensus that this normative turn in innovation policy requires also significant rethinking of public sector policy and administrative capacities (Mazzucato and Kattel 2018; Kattel 2022).

There seems to be also a consensus among (innovation) policy scholars that collaborative, iterative, co-creative and experimental forms of governance, policy-making and policy delivery are superior to more traditional forms to achieve the transformative goals, such as tackling climate change (e.g. Trischler et al. 2022). Public administration scholars, have conceptualized this as the need for transformative government substituting constitutional and discretionary traditions with more collaborative principles (Braams et al. 2021).

Yet, all of these conceptual approaches for improving policy interventions tend to assume that once better policy interventions are co-created or co-discovered jointly by a diverse set of actors, implementation becomes the easier task as these solutions should be based on more legitimate grounds and lead to much easier necessary changes in implementation practices. But this can be a dangerous simplification by scholars and policy communities - public sector organizations and processes are characterized by path dependencies, legacies, and routine lock-ins, especially if the policy feedback loops are punctuated and complex (Karo and Kattel 2018).

In this paper, we are explicitly interested in a ‘realist’ perspective on delivering the normative turn of innovation policy. We ask conceptually - through literature review and merging of innovation policy and public administration debates - what it takes from governments, in terms of rethinking policy and administrative processes and capacities, to deliver the desired normative turn in innovation policy.

We specifically focus at the ’transformative“’ elements of innovation policy in the context of sustainability challenges. Namely, recent theoretical advances claim here that next to maintaining overall innovation-supportive environment and support of innovations in new sustainability niches, transformative policies should also include actions to ’destabilise’ the unsustainable practices to enable diffusion and scaling of more sustainable alternatives and achieving sustainability transitions of different socio-technical systems (see Bergek et al. 2023; Elzinga et al. 2023; Kanger et al. 2020).

We argue that while this is an important theoretical advance in innovation scholarship, it may also the biggest practical implementation challenges. Arguably, much of the institutional and administrative frameworks that modern governments rests upon are built with stability in mind. Concepts such as rule of law, checks-and-balances, administrative neutrality, to name just a handful of them, aim to provide long-term stability for governing societies. Furthermore, for long periods of modern political history, transformative government would have been equated with revolutions and thus particularly in political philosophy we have historically numerous debates and treaties on how to avoid revolutions, or transformations.

Conceptually, we propose that the concept of public sector dynamic capabilities based on different organizational routines from sense-making and connecting to shaping (Kattel 2022), which we extend to include also transformation routines, offers useful theoretical and analytical lens to unpack this practical challenge of transformative innovation policy.

Acknowledgement: This work is part of the PADST - Public Administration Capabilities for Digital and Sustainable Tradition - project funded by the European Union (grant agreement ID: 101079227) and supported by UKRI Innovate UK Council (project reference: 10052110).

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