Are grand challenge-oriented innovation policy instruments involving new types of R&I actors? This is the question that my colleague David Howoldt and I explored in our recent article published in the journal Industry and Innovation. Grand challenges are complex social problems, such as climate change, environmental sustainability, ageing societies, or neglected diseases. Traditionally, R&I innovation policy instruments seek to involve conventional R&I actors like universities and firms. There is a widespread agreement that the wickedness of these grand challenges requires involving as well new types of R&I actors (like civil society organizations, patient organizations, NGOs, etc). Being ‘problem-owners’ these new actors can interact and work together with traditional R&I actors to search for new approaches and solutions. Hence, targeting these new R&I actors has become a mantra in transformative innovation policy design.

In our article, we analyzed how different types of R&I actors are targeted by policy instruments that aim to address grand challenges. We used a large OECD-EU data set of more than 3,800 policy instruments from 52 countries. We identified five typical constellations of targeted R&I actors, ranging from traditional university- or firm-led constellations to more diverse and inclusive ones. We focused on two constellations where the new R&I actors are present, namely, wide constellations and civil-society-led constellations.

We found that wide constellations, which target a balanced mix of R&I actors, are positively associated with grand challenge policy instruments. This suggests that, generally speaking, grand challenge-oriented policy instruments are indeed designed to foster collaboration and knowledge integration among different types of actors. However, we also found that civil-society-led constellations, which target mainly civil society actors, are less associated with grand challenge instruments. This indicates that these instruments are less common and less aligned with the grand challenge policy rationale.

All in all, there seems to be partial consistency between the grand challenge policy rationale of instruments, and the extent to which they involve new types of R&I actors. Our findings have practical implications for policymakers who want to design more effective and inclusive innovation policies for addressing grand challenges.

If you want to learn more about our article, you can read it here. I hope you find it interesting and useful!

Image by Henning Westerkamp from Pixabay