Short Abstract

Innovations may unfold amid persistent uncertainties & predictable policy shifts. By highlighting how power and agency are negotiated in volatile environments, this panel seeks contributions that re-imagine development as a process rooted not in stability, but in resilience & creative adaptation.

Description

Innovation processes in the Global South increasingly unfold in contexts marked by deep uncertainty, economic instability, policy inconsistency, currency fluctuations, and governance fragility. This panel seeks contributions on studies that have explored how firms, research institutions, and intermediaries navigate and adapt to such unpredictable environments. Drawing on perspectives from innovation systems theory, evolutionary economics, and development studies, the panel interrogates how uncertainty shapes learning dynamics, collaboration, and technological trajectories. We seek

Contributions on diverse cases across Africa, Asia, and Latin America to highlight how innovation actors devise coping strategies; ranging from informal knowledge networks and flexible partnerships to frugal and non-technological innovations that enable survival and adaptation. We also need to how state and non-state institutions mediate uncertainty through policy experimentation, digitalization, and international linkages.

By juxtaposing experiences from developing and emerging economies, the panel aims to illuminate the mechanisms through which innovation occurs despite instability, and how these mechanisms reconfigure notions of resilience, agency, and institutional learning within innovation systems. Ultimately, it asks: How can innovation systems be re-imagined to thrive under volatility rather than be constrained by it? The discussions in the panel will contribute to the Development Studies Association’s 2026 theme of “Power, Agency, and Futures” by uncovering how innovation actors exercise agency and negotiate power asymmetries in crafting alternative futures amidst structural uncertainty.

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