40 Innovation Policy and Sustainable Development - IWT

Part 1
SETTING THE SCENE
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INTRODUCTION
The Position Paper by Patries Boekholt and
Jan Larosse starts from the observation that
the rationale for innovation policy has been
strengthened from a system perspective. It
can meet the agenda of sustainable development
in terms of innovation for societal
objectives. From an economic perspective
the missions of innovation policy – reducing
market failures due to positive externalities
of knowledge production and usage – and
of environmental policy – reducing the negative
externalities of non-sustainable technologies
– can be combined. On the
agenda is how to operate an horizontal
policy that effectively realizes this goal: is
innovation policy effective as a policy
instrument, and can it be part of a policy
mix that levies progress to sustainable
development
A first series of conference papers was delivered
by the keynote speakers, invited to ‘set
the scene’, and introduce the two policy traditions
that are challenged to contribute
together to environmentally sustainable
growth.
Ken Guy starts with drawing some lessons
on the effectiveness of present day innovation
policy from a system perspective.
Innovation policy is now expected to serve
several masters. Exploring the possibilities of
interaction between innovation and environmental
policies, he suggests that a beneficial
combination has to answer two different
questions: what can innovation policy
do for sustainable development, and what
can environmental policy do for innovation.
Applying a successful broad mix requires
high levels of ‘strategic intelligence’.
The second paper was presented by George
Heaton, who introduced the metaphor of
'an arranged marriage' to describe the difficulties
and opportunities involved in matching
two parties that have a lot in common,
both are not able to get acquainted without
special commitment and special changeagents.
There is a clear under-investment in
next generation technologies by the environmental
industry, but there is a need to
frame these technology developments in
new, transformative technological pathways.
The paper of the third keynote speaker Luke
Georghiou features in Part 2, introducing the
concept of additionality to assess whether
innovation policy makes a difference.
The paper of René Kemp is included in this
introductory series because it stresses the
need for an integrated policy approach
towards innovation for the environment. It
outlines the model of transition management
to work towards sustainability in various
domains. Transition management consists
of a deliberate attempt to bring forth
long-term change in a step-wise manner,
utilising dynamics.
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