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In this article we want to explore the role of the state to influence and support the demand for innovation in the context of transformation with a triple focus. First, we discuss the importance of demand for innovation and transformation. Second, we elaborate the conceptual underpinning of state intervention on the demand side. This In doing so, we link the demand side interventions with both the transformation debate and the innovation based competitiveness of systems debate. We then zoom into the main focus of this discussion paper, public demand and public procurement practice for innovation and transformation as this is - or can be - a powerful lever to spur both transformation and innovation which is largely underexplored and underused. Here we differentiate different forms of public procurement as well as different functions it can play in different transformation contexts. Rather than elaborating individual instruments and measures to support procurement, which is done in many ways elsewhere, we conclude with a number of high level recommendation for policy and analysis in order to further a debate the value of which has been recognised, but yet which has not materialised in any serious policy strategies for procurement.

This paper examines the influence of the institutional setting on knowledge brokering work in legislatures. We argue that legislative brokers face three specific challenges: heightened legitimacy requirements for the brokered knowledge, the need to cater for a wide range of topics and different audiences, and the need to compete with other suppliers of research. Based on the in-depth interpretive case study of the UK Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, we develop a functional framework for productive in-house legislative knowledge brokering. We argue that in order to survive and strive in the challenging legislative science advisory ecosystems, knowledge brokers need to develop a broader range of competencies than brokers in government do, in particular, the ability to organise for impact of their work. This paper contributes to the view of knowledge brokering as the involved, strategic, context-dependent activity and offers lessons for practitioners to improve research utilization in legislatures.

Virtually all areas of life were plunged into crisis when the Covid-19 pandemic struck in 2020. While innovation offers paths out of the crisis, many aspects of innovation are themselves feeling the effects of it. Against this backdrop, the question is how the Covid-19 pandemic will impact the future of innovation. In the following section, we will examine this by reviewing the “Understanding Change, Shaping the Future. Impulses for the Future of Innovation” paper in a pandemic context. Starting with the relevant trends for innovation systems identified in 2018, and the theses developed on this basis, we would once again like to take you forward in time to 2030. From this vantage point we will look back on the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on innovation systems and examine the resulting opportunities and risks in more detail. Among the trends considered relevant for innovation systems were the digital transformation, the growing complexity of innovation systems, the continuously expanding stakeholder base, a more frequent use of Open Science approaches, and a trend towards the development of holistic and systemic solutions.

Die großen gesellschaftlichen Herausforderungen, die "Grand Challenges", fordern eine Missionsorientierte Innovationspolitik. Wir möchten hierzu einen konzeptionellen Beitrag leisten und zentrale Bausteine benennen. The major problems facing society, the so-called »Grand Challenges«, call for mission-oriented innovation policy. We aim to make a conceptual contribution here and identify the main components.

There is a need for concepts and methods to develop generic insights across cases in transitions studies and to analyse "transformational system failures" in policy. This paper identifies dimensions for a system level analysis and illustrates their application to compare cases and identify possible entry points for policy. System dimensions are grouped into the function of the socio-technical system, its characteristics, the context and its agency. Transformation dimensions address drivers and barriers, politics and dynamics of the system. The illustrations for German bioeconomy and sustainable mobility in the Netherlands both indicate directionality failures and contested policy goals. This results in reflexivity failures in the German bioeconomy, because clear goals are not set, impeding the monitoring of progress. In contrast, mobility initiatives in the Netherlands are constantly adapting to moving targets. Governance structures facilitating system change need to avoid capture by vested interests influencing the routes of change. Both illustrations allow to draw general conclusions as to the value of a structured systems and transformation analysis to support policy analysis and practice.

Im Zuge der COVID19-Pandemie ist der Begriff der Resilienz zu einem zunehmend wichtigen Leitbild geworden. Stimmen aus Politik, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft fordern Strategien, um Krisen besser zu überstehen oder sie am besten gar nicht erst entstehen zu lassen. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the concept of resilience has become an increasingly important guiding principle. Voices from politics, business and society are calling for strategies which help to better weather crises or ideally prevent them from occurring in the first place.

Nicht erst seit der aktuellen Corona-Krise werden die Rufe nach Technologiesouveränität in Europa lauter. Wachsende geopolitische Unsicherheiten und drohende globale Handelskonflikte stellen den Verflechtungsoptimismus der letzten Jahrzehnte in Frage. Dies löst auch in Deutschland eine Diskussion darüber aus, wie unabhängig ein Staat oder ein Staatenbund in Bezug auf kritische Technologien sein muss und sein kann. Dabei wird deutlich, dass die Forderung nach Technologiesouveränität in einem Spannungsverhältnis zum dominanten wirtschaftspolitischen Modell steht, in welchem weltweite Spezialisierung und Arbeitsteilung in Verbindung mit offenen Handelsbeziehungen die Wohlfahrt Aller erhöht. Gerade die Exportnation Deutschland und der Wirtschaftsraum der EU müssen deshalb die Frage nach Technologiesouveränität differenziert und mit Augenmaß bearbeiten. Mit dem Positionspapier stellen wir eine Konzipierung von Technologiesouveränität vor. Damit wollen wir die aktuelle Debatte bereichern und eine bessere Differenzierung ermöglichen. Wir entwickeln Kriterien und notwendige Analyseschritte, um die Kritikalität von Technologien und den Grad an Technologiesouveränität zu bestimmen und darauf aufbauend angepasste Strategien zur Sicherung oder Herstellung von Technologiesouveränität zu entwickeln. Calls for technology sovereignty in Europe were becoming louder even before the current Corona crisis. Growing geopolitical uncertainties and the threat of global trade conflicts are questioning the optimism of recent decades concerning the interdependence of our economies. In Germany, this is triggering a discussion about how independent a state or a federation of states must and can be with regard to critical technologies. It becomes clear that there is an increasing conflict between the call for technology sovereignty on the one hand, and the dominant economic model on the other, in which global specialization and the division of labor combined with open trade increases the welfare of all. Germany, in particular, as an export nation, and the EU as an economic area must consider the question of technology sovereignty carefully and in a differentiated manner. We present one conception of technology sovereignty in this position paper. Our intention is to enrich the current debate and improve differentiation. We develop the criteria and key analytical steps needed to determine the criticality of technologies and the degree of technology sovereignty. Building on this, we develop modified strategies to safeguard or to produce technology sovereignty.

The goal to address broader societal problems by mission-oriented research and inno-vation policy has brought new demands for the governance and implementation to the forefront and led to a great diversity of missions. By developing a typology for the clas-sification of different types of missions, this working paper can serve as a first step for studying the impact of the missions of the German High-Tech Strategy 2025 (HTS). Combining existing literature on mission-oriented innovation policy with insights from governance structures, we identify four types of missions - two subtypes of transformer and accelerator missions each - and demonstrate that this typology can be successfully applied to the 12 missions of the German HTS 2025. Thereby, we contribute to a more fine-grained understanding of the different demands and challenges inherent to different missions and thus provide the opportunity for a systematic comparison and a reflection on the varying requirements for assessing the impact of mission-oriented policies.

[Einleitung] Die Bedingungen und Verlaufsformen von Innovationen haben sich in den letzten Jahren deutlich gewandelt. Stichworte sind hier veränderte Innovationsstrategien von Unterneh-men, "offene" Innovationsmodelle, steigende Anforderungen an Geschwindigkeit und Agilität von Innovationsprozessen, globale Kooperation und insbesondere der zentrale Fokus auf digitale Technologien. Gleichzeitig haben sich die gesellschaftlichen Anforde-rungen an den Problemlösungsbeitrag des Innovationssystems − Stichwort Sustainable Development Goals − massiv erhöht. Eine politische Reaktion auf diese vielfältigen Ver-änderungen kann der Wandel der Innovationspolitik hin zu einer "Missionsorientierung" gelten. Innovationspolitik weitet ihren Wirkungsbereich zunehmend aus, von einer Politik für Innovationen zu einer Politik, die auf Innovationen ausgerichtet ist und die gesellschaft-lich gewünschten Wirkungen dieser Innovation zum Ausgangspunkt nimmt. Damit werden deutlich mehr Politikfelder, institutionelle Regelungen und Akteure Teil des Innovations-systems (IS) als zuvor. Schließlich wirkt aktuell die COVID-19-Pandemie als externe Schock und Trendverstärker. Die mittel- und langfristigen Auswirkungen der sich insge-samt deutlich erhöhenden gesellschaftlichen und politischen Anforderungen an unser In-novationssystem sind bislang nur zu erahnen. Die generelle Folge dieser Entwicklungen ist, dass das eingespielte nationale IS und dessen etablierte innovationspolitische Strate-gien durch das Zusammenwirken von sozio-technischen Dynamiken und gesellschaftli-chen Anforderungen zunehmend unter Transformationsdruck geraten sind. Dieser Druck wird sich absehbar weiter beschleunigen. Das nachfolgende Papier greift diese Entwicklungstrends auf (Kap. 2). Nach einem Zwi-schenresümee (Kap. 3) werden daraus die möglichen Konsequenzen für die Innovati-onspolitik abgeleitet (Kap. 4). Wir diskutieren die Frage, wie die Innovationspolitik zu-künftig auf die anstehenden Steuerungsherausforderungen angemessen reagieren kann. Abschließend (Kap. 5) werden mit einer verstärkt konzeptionellen Perspektive Konsequenzen dieser Entwicklung ausgeführt. Neben der Diskussion neuer innovations-politischer Ausrichtung zielen wir als Grundlage dafür auf die Entwicklung eines neuen konzeptionellen Verständnisses von IS ab. Unsere Analyse zeigt gravierende soziale, ökonomische und technologische Span-nungsfelder, die ineinander verwoben sind und deren Bewältigung ein durchgreifendes und systemisches Handeln erfordern. Um diese tiefgreifenden Herausforderungen poli-tisch anzugehen und insbesondere Forschungs- und Innovationspolitik neu auszurich-ten, müssen die säkularen Veränderungen des Innovationssystems systematisch be-leuchtet und konzeptionell neu unterfüttert werden. Dazu will unser Papier beitragen. Es ist das Ergebnis eines gut einjährigen Diskussionsprozesses über innovationspolitische Herausforderungen und Debatten, in die die Autoren/in kontinuierlich involviert sind. Den Fokus haben wir dabei bewusst auf das deutsche Innovationssystem gelegt, ohne dabei den Blick auf die internationalen Entwicklungen insbesondere in den europäischen Mit-gliedsstaaten zu verlieren.

The transformative turn of innovation policy has resulted in calls for a more entrepreneurial and directional role of the state. However, the multiple roles that the state might play remains underexplored. This paper studies the embedded role of the state in four distinct modes of governance of socio-technical systems. Using a three-pillar analytical model, the paper examines four illustrative cases: cryptocurrencies, smart cities, automated vehicles, and nuclear power. The paper identifies 13 different roles of the state: observer, warner, mitigator, opportunist, facilitator, lead-user, enabler of societal engagement, gatekeeper, promoter, moderator, initiator, guarantor and watchdog. The conceptualization of these roles serves to understand that the transformative agency of the state is leveraged/constrained by the modes of governance, and that it is also ultimately exercised through specific mixes of roles.

Betrachtet man die zentralen Fragen entlang der gesamten Batterie-Wertschöpfungskette, so zeigt sich: Der breiten Marktdiffusion batterieelektrischer Pkw (E-Pkw), welche insbesondere im Zeitraum 2020-2030+ in der entscheidenden Hochlaufphase sein wird, steht nichts Unüberwindbares im Wege. Jedoch gilt es noch etliche technologische, ökonomische, ökologische, regulative und gesellschaftliche Herausforderungen im kommenden Jahrzehnt anzugehen. Im nachfolgenden Teil werden die wichtigsten Erkenntnisse zusammengefasst, in den späteren Einzelkapiteln folgt eine ausführliche Darstellung. When looking at the main questions along the entire battery value chain, it becomes clear that there are no insurmountable obstacles that could prevent the widespread market diffusion of battery-electric passenger cars, particularly during the decisive ramp-up phase between 2020 and 2030+. However, numerous technological, economic, ecological, regulatory and societal challenges still need to be tackled in the coming decade. The most important findings are summarized below, followed by a more detailed description in the individual chapters.

Green hydrogen and its synthesis products are regarded as important elements of the energy and climate transition in both Germany's and the European hydrogen strategy. Importing these products is considered an important strategy component. Alongside many aspects that can be classified as relatively certain according to the current state of knowledge, there are still a number of open questions that are addressed in this policy brief and that lead to the following conclusions: (…) In der nationalen sowie der europäischen Wasserstoffstrategie werden grüner Wasserstoff und seine Syntheseprodukte als wichtige Bausteine der Energie- und Klimawende angesehen. Der Import dieser Produkte wird dabei als ein wichtiger Strategiebaustein eingestuft. Neben vielen Aspekten, die nach heutigem Wissensstand als relativ gesichert eingestuft werden können, gibt es noch eine Reihe an offenen Fragen, die im vorliegenden Policy Brief behandelt werden und zu folgenden Schlussfolgerungen führen: (…)

When looking at the main questions along the entire battery value chain, it becomes clear that there are no insurmountable obstacles that could prevent the widespread market diffusion of battery-electric passenger cars, particularly during the decisive ramp-up phase between 2020 and 2030+. However, numerous technological, economic, ecological, regulatory and societal challenges still need to be tackled in the coming decade. The most important findings are summarized below, followed by a more detailed description in the individual chapters. Betrachtet man die zentralen Fragen entlang der gesamten Batterie-Wertschöpfungskette, so zeigt sich: Der breiten Marktdiffusion batterieelektrischer Pkw (E-Pkw), welche insbesondere im Zeitraum 2020-2030+ in der entscheidenden Hochlaufphase sein wird, steht nichts Unüberwindbares im Wege. Jedoch gilt es noch etliche technologische, ökonomische, ökologische, regulative und gesellschaftliche Herausforderungen im kommenden Jahrzehnt anzugehen. Im nachfolgenden Teil werden die wichtigsten Erkenntnisse zusammengefasst, in den späteren Einzelkapiteln folgt eine ausführliche Darstellung.

In der nationalen sowie der europäischen Wasserstoffstrategie werden grüner Wasserstoff und seine Syntheseprodukte als wichtige Bausteine der Energie- und Klimawende angesehen. Der Import dieser Produkte wird dabei als ein wichtiger Strategiebaustein eingestuft. Neben vielen Aspekten, die nach heutigem Wissensstand als relativ gesichert eingestuft werden können, gibt es noch eine Reihe an offenen Fragen, die im vorliegenden Policy Brief behandelt werden und zu folgenden Schlussfolgerungen führen: (…) Green hydrogen and its synthesis products are regarded as important elements of the energy and climate transition in both Germany's and the European hydrogen strategy. Importing these products is considered an important strategy component. Alongside many aspects that can be classified as relatively certain according to the current state of knowledge, there are still a number of open questions that are addressed in this policy brief and that lead to the following conclusions: (…)

In recent years, the traditional rationale for innovation policy has been expanded to tackling societal challenges. There is also an increasing agreement that demand should be at the core of this challenge-oriented innovation policy, as for innovations to make a difference, they must be used. Still, demand and demand conditions are poorly understood and not yet in the focus of challenge-oriented innovation policy. This article re-conceptualises demand-oriented innovation policy and its link to societal challenges. We differentiate demand and need, and highlight different forms of demand articulation. We then characterise three ideal-typical policies that relate to demand: traditional innovation policy, sector-specific policy and challenge-oriented policy. These three ideal-types are then characterised against three major dimensions of any policy: output legitimacy, input legitimacy, and operational requirements. This discussion highlights the specific challenges and opportunities of demand-oriented innovation policies. It allows to derive a set of suggestions to increase the effectiveness of such policies as regards their ability to truly support tackling challenges that are relevant for society.

This editorial introduces the basic idea and content of the special section “the next generation of innovation policy: Directionality and the role of demand side instruments”. It highlights the purpose of the special section, i.e. to spark a new debate about innovation policy against the demands for more directionality of policy intervention and the need for policies to actively contribute to system transitions to confront major societal challenges. It summarises the main contribution of each of the articles in the special section.

Die Leibniz-Gemeinschaft hat den FWF mit der Koordination der Evaluation ihrer Maßnahmen zur strategischen Vernetzung „WissenschaftsCampi“ und „Forschungsverbünde“ – beauftragt. Die beiden Vorhaben wurden parallel und unab­hängig voneinander durchgeführt, Laufzeit war von März bis November 2017. Gegenstand dieser Evaluation sind jene zehn Leibniz-WissenschaftsCampi, die länger als zwei Jahre bestehen und aus den Mitteln der Förderlinie „Strategische Vernetzung“ ge­fördert wurden. Das vorliegende Dokument stellt den Evaluierungsbericht der internationalen ExpertInnenkommission zu den "Leibniz-WissenschaftsCampi" dar. Ergänzend zu diesem Bericht erschien ein „Dossier WissenschaftsCampi“ (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.1012689), das Basis für die Arbeit der Evaluierungskommission war und vom FWF gemeinsam mit der KMU Forschung Austria erstellt wurde.

Absorptive capacity (AC) has been identified as the ability of firms to acquire, assimilate, and apply external knowledge, and thus as a pre-condition for learning from knowledge environment. However, extant literature has focused on AC as (1) a static and (2) a firm-centred concept. In particular, there is little conceptual framing and empirical evidence of how AC develops over time and across boundaries. Taking R&D consortia as the unit of analysis and based on insights from three in-depth case studies of collaborative R&D, our contribution is a framework for AC development over time and across inter-organizational, intra-organizational, and practice boundaries at different stages of collaboration in R&D consortia. Using this framework, we identify a set of mechanisms which enable the development of AC and we discuss the preconditions for these mechanisms. For R&D managers, our research implies that in order to enhance effectiveness of knowledge transfer and learning in R&D consortia they need to develop a strategy that (1) supports learning and AC development throughout the whole cycle of the collaboration, not only by focusing on intra-firm capabilities, but in particular by providing flexible interfaces for overcoming a variety of interaction and learning boundaries between heterogeneous R&D partners, and (2) enables the integration of created and acquired knowledge within the organization once the collaboration is over.

Abandonment of socio-technical systems occurs more often than one would expect. Companies cancel the development, production or support/service of devices, technologies and even established systems. For example, in 2011, Siemens exited from building nuclear power plants; and even a state agency like NASA has a long track of stopping systems before or after start-up. Yet, we know little about how socio-technical systems cease to exist and what it means to discontinue incumbent socio-technical systems actively. As purposeful transitional change is hard to achieve (Markard et al., 2012), how difficult is it then to abandon existing systems purposefully? Bringing a system to an end might be taken for granted as just a side aspect of change – if one is interested in the entire transition trajectory including the fading out of old and the rise of new systems or their parts. Purposeful discontinuation could none the less turn out to be an essential element of creating a basis for change in general and for implementing it in particular. A better understanding of the conditions, forms, roles, effects and limits of the governance of abandoning longstanding socio-technical systems is a relevant question sui generis, and it can also contribute to a better insight into the governance of systems change in general. Our point of departure is the observation that the governance of socio-technical systems (Hekkert et al., 2007; Bergek et al., 20073) has preferentially been perceived and associated with advancement and innovation.

Open Access article Intermediation in innovation serves to establish or improve the link between different actors with complementary skill sets or interests in order to support the generation and diffusion of innovation. This article conceptualises and analyses intermediation between supply and demand using the example of public procurement of innovation. It defines specific intermediation needs and functions in different procurement situations and outlines the pre-condition for effective intermediation. The paper combines and contributes to the growing literature on innovation intermediation and public procurement of innovation. As the paper looks at the demand for innovation it adopts a broad understanding of innovation, defined as a product, service or process that is novel to the buying organisation. In order to develop the conceptualisation of intermediation in the process of demanding innovation, it builds on the existing, rather rudimentary conceptualisation of intermediation in the innovation and management literature. It presents an in-depth analysis of two very different procurement processes in two cases in a complex public sector setting, the English NHS, case of a public buying organisation triggering the generation of an innovation, and another in which an organisation sought to respond to an innovation offered in the marketplace. In both cases, the solution bought necessitated strong adaptation processes with considerable learning costs within the buying organisation. The paper shows how intelligent and tailored intermediation can tackle some of the well-known procedural and capability failures in the process of public procurement of innovation. In terms of policy implications, the article makes the claim for an increased effort to build up effective intermediation across procurement systems to support agencies in concrete procurement and, in doing so, to build up capacity for more intelligent public buying. While the focus on intermediation responds to an existing gap in the literature on public procurement of innovation, the paper has implication for demand-supply intermediation more generally.

Trabajo presentado a la Annual Conference of the European Forum for Studies of Policies for Research and Innovation (EU-SPRI), celebrada en Lund University (Sweden) del 7 al 10 de junio de 2016 con el tema: “Exploring New Avenues for Innovation and Research Policies”., The 2016 EU-SPRI conference aims to provide knowledge foundations for research and innovation policy, and there is a special track on learning from evaluation which this paper intends to contribute to. A long-standing debate in science policy has been how to prioritise between fields of science and between research institutions (Weinberg 1962a and b).

Research and innovation activities need to become more responsive to societal challenges and concerns. The Responsibility Navigator, developed in the Res-AGorA project, supports decision-makers to govern such activities towards more conscious responsibility. What is considered “responsible” will always be defined differently by different actor groups in research, innovation, and society – the Responsibility Navigator is designed to facilitate related debate, negotiation and learning in a constructive and productive way. The Responsibility Navigator supports the identification, development and implementation of measures and procedures that can transform research and innovation in such a way that responsibility becomes an institutionalised ambition

This paper contributes to our understanding of agenda shaping and decision making in science, technology and innovation policy and the role of political entrepreneurship in this process. It does so by looking at the emergence of a particular new STI policy area, security research, in the specific political setting of the European Union. This emergence was in many ways a remarkable new development in EU STI policy and is a puzzle that has yet to be analysed. This paper asks why, how, by whom and in what form security research was put on to the policy agenda and then finally included in the Framework Programme at this specific point in time. The paper emphasises the interplay between discursive mechanisms and power and interest based negotiations. The analysis focuses on the role of the European Commission as policy entrepreneur in pushing the topic onto the agenda and through the decision making process. The main argument is that the Commission was the originator of the Security theme and that the institutional role, entrepreneurial competencies and discursive skills of the Commission helped to capture and utilise a window of opportunity and orchestrate change. However, diverse interests in Member States and in the EU Parliament as well as the lack of a broader normative consensus severely limited the scope of the Security theme. The Commission was thus a constrained entrepreneur, successful in pushing a new area - security research - onto the agenda, but falling short of altering the landscape of defence research in Europe. To explain this complex story of policy change in STI policy and to understand the role and limitations of the European Commission as policy entrepreneur, the paper builds on neo-institutional and European integration theories. This paper makes four contributions: First, it delivers a more complete picture of the current landscape of European research policy, as the Security theme under the seventh Framework Programme has not been discussed in any great detail so far. This serves, second, to illustrate and further develop our understanding of the levers and limitations of policy entrepreneurs in STI policy making. Thirdly, the paper highlights the meaning of ambiguity in discursive development of policy and, finally and most generally, demonstrates how important it is to understand the interplay of ideas and interests in STI policy and the meaning of policy origins.