Policy for system transition: the case of Strategic Innovation Programs (SIP) in Sweden

Purpose and goal

We have develop an analytical framework that allows to specify the conditions that enable and constrain system innovation and applied this framework on two Strategic Innovation Programs, a policy initiative by Vinnova, Sweden´s Innovation Agency, targeting system innovation. Correspondingly, the objective of this study has been to explore how system innovation policy is implemented and to analyze how system innovation policy practice corresponds to the challenges set out by the transformative change implied by system innovation.

Expected results and effects

As an overall framework, the analysis makes use of the literature on socio-technical transitions. While this literature provides relevant and useful concepts to understand (conditions for) system innovation, it remains a challenge to apply the socio-technical transitions literature for policy studies. We therefore develop an analytical framework for system innovation policy by integrating concepts from socio-technical transitions into an innovation system approach.

Planned approach and implementation

To provide for greater analytical precision in analysing the conditions for and processes of system innovation policy, we suggest a return to some of the basic categories from innovation systems, namely actor interests and capabilities, networks and institutions. This will allow us to unpack and specify when and how policy measures are able to influence processes of directionality, experimentation, demand articulation and policy learning & coordination. This framework has been applied on Bioinnovation and Re:source.