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The late Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej formulated the Sufficiency Economy Philosophy (SEP). "Sufficiency" means balancing reasonable moderation in production against the need for protection from sudden internal and external shocks. SEP follows the middle path as a guiding principle for all classes of society and government. Knowledge, thoughtfulness, prudence, and ethical integrity are essential to achieve the middle path. This paper explores the use of SEP as a method of social innovation for enhancing delivery of public services and for localizing the process of sustainable development. Such innovative use of SEP is illustrated by three exploratory case studies of local administrative organisations (LAOs) in Thailand. All three LAOs' case studies have mayors with significant entrepreneurial talent useful in teaching entrepreneurial action to their residents, their staff, and other local leaders. Together, these cases show the potential of SEP as a method of bottom up social action and sustainable development. A brief discussion of the wider need for and use of innovation, including social innovations, and underpinning entrepreneurship, is included prior to the Thai case studies. There is also a short section examining similar types of activities to those observed in the cases in the European context by way of comparison. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainability transitions require that sustainable innovations develop and scale-up. Two promising approaches contribute to this purpose. Design thinking (DT) focuses on the creative development of sustainable innovations to achieve desirable, feasible and viable products. Strategic niche management (SNM) addresses how sustainable innovations should be deployed to the market. At first sight, these concepts seem to pursue a complementary mission, yet, academic literature has not explicitly addressed their complementary nature. Therefore, this paper addresses this gap by reviewing, proposing and empirically exploring the merits of SNM and how these can be used in DT through a workshop to increase successful market implementation of sustainable innovations. The study finds that SNM potentially helps the DT design process to (1) change market preconditions for the design, (2) create a protected niche for development, (3) establish a (long term) commercial viability, and (4) create an innovation development plan through definition of a set of testable propositions. The paper concludes that the inclusion of SNM into DT substantially increases the preparedness of an innovation team for a successful market implementation of sustainable innovations and coins the term 'Design to Market Thinking' for the integrated use of SNM in DT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the bibliography on GIs keeps increasing, there is skepticism regarding the impact and effectiveness of GI policy. This paper deals with four categories of products in the fruit and vegetable sector of the PDOs and PGIs of the EU. It examines their relationship with tradition and innovation and assesses their economic, social, and environmental impact using a mixed quantitative and qualitative method. The findings of this study suggest that PDOs/PGIs are anchored to the notion of tradition and exhibit an innovative character. Regarding sustainability, a spectrum of successful/moderately successful/'failed' products exist for each sustainability dimension [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This short essay aims at introducing the International Review of Sociology monographic issue, devoted to the notion of sustainability. The topic is incredibly relevant in the contemporary scientific and political debate, in a time when environmental issues are overlapping the worldwide spread of demand for justice and equality. Within this framework, as a first step I try to list the numerous meanings of the notion 'sustainability' and highlight how the physical-biological scope necessarily intersects the social and political aspects of this notion. The second step consists of highlighting how sustainability is also related to innovation, both technological and social. Finally, I focus the other object of this issue: the role of welfare systems in achieving and defending environmental and social sustainability. This section of the work will include the presentation of the other papers, which focus either on theoretical studies on welfare systems or in case studies, which focus on welfare sustainable policies in the domains of health, migration and generational equity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Technological Innovation Systems (TIS) framework has become popular for analyzing innovation dynamics and as a systematic approach to understanding the development of new technologies. This paper aims to identify the main drivers and issues faced by EdTech startups and the entrepreneurs' innovation role within Kazakhstan's entrepreneurial ecosystem using the TIS framework, but from the role of the entrepreneur as the main actor, as opposed to systems. This study offers relevant information for new entrepreneurs in the EdTech field aiming for similar goals and potentially facing similar challenges faced by current entrepreneurs in that country. Data were collected from an online survey and semi-structured interviews using a quasi-quantitative and qualitative approach. The main research findings include identifying critical categories of risks and success indicators for Kazakhstan's EdTech startup entrepreneurs, including the ability to attract foreign and local investments, risk management, monetization strategies, developing trends, and government support. A total of 30 companies were analyzed, with findings suggesting that the quality of the entrepreneurial ecosystem reflects the level of economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2030 Agenda positioned Science, Technology and Innovation as crucial means for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This paper explores how a localised South-African policy experiment named the "Living Catchments Project" (LC Project) contributes towards the SDGs. This project is part of a portfolio of experiments to trigger innovation for transformative change in South Africa. The LCP team worked directly with the Transformative Innovation Policy Consortium (TIPC) researchers adding a transformative layer to the project's design and implementation. The project embraces uncertainty and complexity by promoting experimentation to inform and facilitate learning processes and changes in people, organisations and institutions. Additionally, we combine the TIP perspective with core concepts of the capability approach: capabilities, agency, democratic deliberation and conversion factors. With this integrated approach, we explore what the capability approach can offer to the LC Project. We conclude with policy recommendations on the potentialities and constraints of the combined TIP- capability approach for achieving the SDGs and conducting transformative innovation experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an overview of the effect of research and development (R&D) expenditure and government effectiveness on economic growth. By focusing on R&D expenditure as a measure of innovation, government effectiveness as a measure of governance and GDP as a measure of economic growth, we examined the effect of R&D and government effectiveness on GDP in selected African countries. Four countries were chosen due to the availability of their data from 2000 to 2016. Linear regression and correlated panels corrected standard errors (PCSEs) regression models were used to analyze the data. The result showed that both R&D and governance are important factors in predicting economic growth in Africa. Therefore, only innovation through increasing R&D expenditure and good governance can sufficiently drive sustainable economic growth and development in Africa. Thus, African countries need to strengthen and build their research and development capacity while ensuring the effectiveness of their government to achieve sustainable economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rise of knowledge-based territorial development has been fuelled primarily by aspirations of competitiveness and wealth creation. Another upcoming ambition is that of sustainability, not only as an accompanying goal but as a core mission driving territorial initiatives such as clusters development. This paper explores mission-driven territorial development along theoretical and empirical lines. The paper starts by discussing a basic heuristic model intersecting the three concepts of ‘mission’, ‘knowledge’ (distinguishing ‘substantive’ and ‘significant’ knowledge) and ‘governance’. This leads to an analytical framework for territorial development focusing on (1) mission formulation, (2) production and exchange of knowledge in supportive milieus, (3) embedding of substantive knowledge, (4) anchoring of significant knowledge, and (5) feeding of significant knowledge into the (re) design of institutions and strategies of policy design and implementation. This framework is applied to three cases of ‘Metropolitan Food Clusters’ to illustrate and test the framework. The paper shows how especially the continuous anchoring of significant knowledge poses major challenges to knowledge-based territorial development and should be a central issue in future research and policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the South African handicraft sector, there is scarcely any significant research on the development of designs and product innovation. Extensive work has not been carried out by the producers to re-orient designs, colours and pattern of the product produced to suit the international standards. This study investigated the role of innovative design towards the sustainable development of handicraft industries through a case study of the Western Cape province of South Africa. The research focuses on the possibility of craft design for sustainable development of the handicraft products to aid in the economic development of the local community. The paper present results from a structured interview with producers, enablers, and buyers of handicraft products in the Western Cape province. The conclusion of the paper presents key findings from the structured interviews. These consist of the interventions for craft design for sustainable development and the handicraft product that has the highest potential for future development. Recommendations are provided for design approaches to the handicraft sector's sustainable development, i.e. reproduction, modification and innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critically discusses of the relationship between innovation and development by presenting a case of a Technology and Innovation Hub. It draws upon the capability approach by Amartya Sen to understand the implications of tech hubs in development. We argue that tech hubs, as collaborative spaces, may contribute to human-centered development processes in ways not directly linked to employment or market-based products. This advances a human-centered view of development which focuses on aspects of well-being and agency that people have reason to value. Conceptually, the paper proposes an understanding of innovation for development as (often unequal) social processes which might contribute to human development if and when the people involved perceive value in the processes, and these values include improving their own communities and society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poverty alleviation has been positioned high on the international development agenda following the adoption of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2000. African countries initiated various missions to establish sustained economic growth by increasing productivity with an ultimate goal of poverty reduction. The significance of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in poverty reduction and employment generation is widely acknowledged. Despite the high failure rate amongst SMEs, particularly in the African context, some are striving with excellent results and are demonstrating signs of growth, innovation and sustainability. This paper explores the development of SMEs as a strategic measure for job creation in sub-Saharan Africa. It examines the role of SMEs in achieving sustainable employment in Africa. This study will benefit governments in Africa, getting them to focus on the development of the SMEs, and guiding them on how best to integrate SME development to achieve poverty alleviation. The recommendations proposed in this study may be helpful in policy formulation, business operation and regulatory practice for sustainable growth and development in the sub-Saharan African context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic, environmental, and social limits of the current capitalist mode of production have led to a rethinking and reconceptualisation of economic processes and models including the role of businesses in sustainable development. While green economies and more specifically green entrepreneurs have been identified as agents of change that can challenge the mainstream and seek to induce environmental, social, and ethical transformation of society, much research has stayed within existing models of thinking predominantly rooted in technocratic approaches (e.g. ecological modernisation and more recently transition studies). This paper seeks to offer an alternative understanding of green entrepreneurship that breaks open these discussions using an environmental justice frame that focuses on the role of extra-economic discourses in shaping the social relations of economic systems. By drawing on an exemplary case study of “just” entrepreneurship from Boston, Massachusetts, USA, the paper seeks to start a conversation around the ideas of green entrepreneurship and environmental justice as vehicles to deliver potentially broader system changes and explores both conceptual and practical aspects of green development. As such, it offers (1) evidence of a just green economy that can be realised within existing capitalist structures as well as (2) a different conceptual entry point to understanding green entrepreneurship. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents an analysis of patterns of university interaction for innovation that engenders inclusive development in Nigeria. Specifically, it explains innovative solutions for women empowerment that occurred through interaction between the University of Ibadan and the Ile-Ogbo community and its implication for sustainable development goals. It is a case of innovation and skills upgrading aimed at improving the livelihood conditions of women in a semi-urban marginalized community. The results demonstrate that interactions of the sampled respondents generated three types of innovation: process, products and marketing innovations, which promote livelihood of the marginalized women. It also identified a well-defined pathway that connects innovation to empowerment and how marginalized women can improve and control their earnings. The study concludes that interactions at the community level, that addressed livelihood problems of a typical marginalized community in an informal set up, can help in achieving sustainable development goals, especially that of women empowerment in Nigeria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyses the relations between policy studies and public policy. It traces how they are constitutively entangled. Conceptually, this builds on a notion of performativity that has been developed in science studies. The performativity of policy studies is explored in a case study of the innovation journey of “transition management” as a model for governing sociotechnical change. The paper shows how practices of knowledge production and policy-making take shape in interaction with the model and how a specialized research field coevolves with political alliances and policy programs. They interact in the process of realizing transition management, both by establishing the model as collective knowledge and by materially enacting it. In this interweaving with public policy, policy studies contribute to creating the reality that they describe. The conclusions discuss “realizing” as a mode of governance. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The paper addresses the question of how institutional change relates to the diffusion of microgeneration energy technologies in the UK, posed in a research project comprising interviews with thirty-one respondents connected with the field of microgeneration in the UK. It analyses the nature of institutional rules in the prevailing regime of electricity generation and in microgeneration niches. It examines how such rules might facilitate systems innovation, or contribute to the maintenance of the prevailing system or partial change. The conclusions of the paper inform and deepen understanding of how conformity to or innovation in institutional rules may hamper or potentially contribute to diffusion of environmentally sustainable microgeneration of energy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper emphasises that more holistic infrastructure systems are of great importance to achieving sustainable development of China and hence of the planet. Whilst rapid urbanisation brings the prospect of economic growth and a higher standard of living, it may also involve unsustainable consumption of scarce resources (land, materials, energy and water), accompanied by environmental degradation (such as pollution, emissions and waste). The challenge is to achieve the necessary economic growth but with far lower resource use, and thus reduce the ecological footprint, as recognised by China's Circular Economy policy. Whilst developed nations should rightly aim for a Factor 10 improvement in resource productivity, Factor 4 is often seen as a more appropriate target for developing countries -- a fourfold increase. This involves doubling wealth while halving resource use in order to return to an ecological balance. Arguably, even greater resource productivity is required. China's economy will need to achieve at least a sevenfold increase in efficiency of resource use to achieve the goal of 'all-round well-being of society' set for 2050, although some have argued that a tenfold increase (90% improvement) will be required. The paper highlights the significant contribution of transport, energy, water and built infrastructure to resource consumption, greenhouse gas emissions and the ecological footprint. It examines ways that China can move towards a Factor 10 improvement in resource productivity. This involves viewing infrastructure as 'a system to facilitate the delivery of services' to support social and economic development in an integrated, eco- or resource-efficient, cost-effective and socially inclusive manner, coupled with extending the principles of a 'product service system' more widely to an 'infrastructure service system'. It is argued that a revolution in thought and action is required to achieve the necessary paradigm shift in China, with the West leading by example. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globally, governments recognize the importance of creativity and innovation for sustainable socioeconomic development, and many invest resources to develop learning environments that foster these capacities. This paper provides a systematic framework based on Nair's Innovation Helix model for studying the factors of a country's creative learning ecosystem (CLE), the quality of its education system (QES), and its innovative capacity (IC). The CLE factors are infrastructure/infostructure (physical and digital infrastructure), intellectual capital, interaction, integrity systems, incentives, and institutions. Using a composite CLE index for 113 countries, the findings indicate a strong correlation between a country's CLE, QES and IC. Through brief case studies of countries that measure highly in CLE, QES and IC, this study points out their higher education strategies and their best practices for other countries to emulate, in order to facilitate creativity and innovation through higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Daventry is scheduled to grow from a population of 23,000 to 40,000 by 2021, and sustainable growth is the aim. A radical approach is needed to solving the problem of car dependence. Like other small towns, conventional public transport solutions are under-performing. PRT (personal rapid transport) offers the attributes of taxis, but with minimum waiting time and might be faster than cars in some cases. Daventry District Council commissioned Sinclair Knight Merz (SKM) to undertake a two-phase study during 2007 reviewing the PRT concept. This paper summarises the technical work and the key findings, including the identification of a possible pilot scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid progress of modern civilization, creativity and innovation within a techno-economic perspective are becoming the major driving forces behind the sustainability of economic growth and competitive achievements. The current paper will focus on developing a clear concept of the terms creativity and innovation, and investigate their possible relation with engineering education. The parameters that could be essential for the enhancement of creativity or innovation are discussed from the perspective of the individual and the community. An engineering creativity enterprise diagram (ECED) is introduced to be reflective of the industrialization and technological level of any community as correlated to creativity and innovation. A systematic approach is designed to help developing the possible courses and activities that would enhance creativity and innovative skills and capabilities of a graduate engineer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The successful management of significant organisational change, which may be manifested through innovations in technologies, products, markets, processes and organisational forms, frequently requires facilitation and expertise—not all of which is available to firms in-house. In this paper we test the hypothesis that large firms offering professional services have the competence and legitimacy necessary to assume a significant role in facilitating strategic business responses to the challenge of sustainability and thereby creating competitive advantage for their clients. A number of these firms and their existing and potential clients were surveyed to identify their current and future potential role(s) in this area. With their ability to convene multidisciplinary teams of strategic advisors, such firms appear to have some competitive strengths with respect to sustainability consulting and third-party auditing and verification. However, the scope of services offered by firms with respect to sustainable development does not always appear to be consistent with the main challenges facing their clients. Furthermore, the firms' perceptions of how they are positioned in the value chain differs from that of some of their potential clients. We conclude that this may be linked to a number of factors, not least the firms' perceived credibility and legitimacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]