Abstract deadline 28 June 2024
Manuscript deadline 31 October 2024
The recent emergence of the term ‘transformative innovation policy’ (TIP) has changed the rhetoric on and substance of innovation policy (McLaren & Kattel, 2022; Ghosh et al., 2021; Fagerberg, 2018; Schot & Steinmueller, 2018; Weber & Rohracher 2012). The ‘traditional’ focus of innovation policy on increasing economic growth and prosperity is expanding to embrace a new paradigm that promotes green regional development (Tödtling et al., 2020), sustainable inclusive growth through, e.g. S4+ (Moujaes, 2024), and socio-technical change for addressing grand challenges through innovation policy (Isaksen et al., 2022). These trends point out that, first, increasing directionality of innovative activities on a national level risks depriving innovation policy of democratic legitimacy necessary for ‘adapting’ the broad societal challenges to local framework conditions and promoting multi-scalar institutional arrangements (Weber & Rohracher, 2012; Wanzenböck & Frenken, 2020). Particularly cities, with their proximity to citizens, can engage in direction-setting and co-creation processes (Bulkeley et al., 2019). Secondly, addressing societal challenges has become increasingly important to regional innovation policy (e.g., Isaksen et al., 2022; Cappellano et al., 2022; Bugge et al., 2022), resulting in the necessity of policy re-orientation by embracing transformative and mission-oriented practices (e.g., Tödtling et al., 2022). Indeed, industrial policies and their potential role in tackling grand societal challenges through investment and innovation are gaining renowned research interest (see SI by Bailey, Pitelis & Tomlinson, 2023). Especially their manifestation in Smart Specialisation strategies, which are often regarded as a central mechanism to nurture new local transformative activities by supporting place-based innovative endeavours (see SI by Gianelle, Kyriakou, McCanna & Morgan, 2020).
However, whilst TIP ideas are gaining momentum in the mainstream innovation policy debates (Diercks et al., 2019; Schot & Steinmueller 2018; Edler & Fagerberg 2017), the literature fails to address the role of policy makers at the city and regional levels in promoting sustainable responses. Addressing the latter is important, because transformative changes are context sensitive and while local governments are best suited to translate ‘directions of change’ from the (supra)national to the local level, delegating more power to the regional level can be hampered by a lack of capabilities, networks, and institutional arrangements (Kristensen et al., 2023). To date, only a few studies have looked specifically at how transition processes play out on the ground and how resulting diversity of reform trajectories may be explained from a perspective of ‘place’/territory or territorial scale (Casula, 2022).
This call for papers aims to explore the link between national-regional-city-level innovation policies in tackling grand societal challenges, and the implications for regional policy.
Specifically, we are interested in papers that address the following themes:
- Place-based initiatives for responding to societal challenges particularly at the city and regional level vis-à-vis the transformative innovation policy efforts at the national and supranational levels.
- Institutional capacity and the role of key actors in TIP/IP at the sub-national level.
- Multi-level governance and vertical policy integration in shaping TIP at the city and regional level.
- Leadership and human agency in fostering sustainable transformation (broadly defined) on the regional and city level.
We invite submissions from researchers in the fields of geography, regional and innovation studies, public policy and related fields. Both theoretical and empirical submissions are welcome, as well as case studies from different regions/cities and contexts.
References
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