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Systems innovation challenges

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This page is a work-in-progress. Your feedback is important! Please share your questions, ideas or other feedback with Claudio Lazo, Wouter van den Berg, Célestine de Zeeuw and/or Mirjam Groote Schaarsberg.

Challenges to Systems innovation​

We are starting to identify the challenges of bringing forth systems innovation. These challenges should be addressed in the knowledge agenda. The following list is based on a few key documents.

Organizational challenges​

  • Misalignments such as wrong KPIs, delivery system (OECD, 2015)
  • Spotting and seizing an opportunity requires imagination and courage (Leadbeater & Winhall, 2020)
  • Large companies don’t want system change, but are necessary to join the process in order to make real change (TNO, 2014)
  • Hard to recognize who are relevant actors for an emerging technology (TNO, 2014)
  • Learning by also capturing negative lessons, not just success stories (TNO, 2014)

Methodological challenges​

  • SI policy requires sophisticated analytical tools and processes (OECD, 2015)
  • About transition management: To what extent can transitions really be ‘managed’? (TNO, 2014)
  • Hard to grasp outcomes of policy programmes in quantitative terms (TNO, 2014)
  • Monitoring through expert judgment is susceptible to interpretation bias (TNO, 2014)
  • The problem is not availability of tools, but the selection, adaption and combination of those that are moste suited (Ghosh & Torrens, 2020)

Societal and institutional challenges​

  • Barriers to transition (OECD, 2015)
  • ‘Open-ended endpoints’ (OECD)
  • Not clear whether bottom-up, self-regulatory approaches are more effective than ‘classic’ regulatory policy of norms and penalties (TNO, 2014)

References​

Ghosh, B., & Torrens, J. (2020). Towards a transformative innovation policy (TIP) research agenda

Leadbeater, C., & Winhall, J. (2020). Building Better Systems. A Green Paper on System Innovation. Rockwool Foundation, Copenhagen.

OECD (2015). Systems innovation synthesis report.

TNO (2014). Systemic Innovation: Concepts and tools for strengthening National and European Eco-policies.

Last updated on by Wouter van den Berg