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- Convenors:
-
Cornelius Schubert
(TU Dortmund)
Tiago Brandão (NOVA FCSH)
Send message to Convenors
- Format:
- Traditional Open Panel
Short Abstract:
Innovation is often conceived as a universal solution for transformative change. We seek to question this problem-solution package from a Critical Studies of Innovation perspective. We call for studies of discontinuities in innovation practices or policies and how they vary in societal fields.
Long Abstract:
The panel seeks to question the dominant pro-innovation bias within many government and research funding policies from a Critical Studies of Innovation perspective. Critical Studies of Innovation challenge innovation narratives and myths while at the same time offering alternative approaches and concepts. We are interested in contributions from diverse fields of research, e.g. on regional or urban transformations, innovation in (higher) education, sustainability, digitalization, mobility, migration, energy, or evaluation studies in general related to innovation programmes, policies and/or grassroots initiatives, including historical studies. We especially welcome contributions from the global south.
The main aim is to address discontinuities and unanticipated consequences of innovation practices and policies that emerge from transformative processes of change. For instance: How are innovation policies or theories from the global north imitated and implemented by actors from the global south? How far can innovation practices be adapted to local particularities, and how do they differ from dominant pro-innovation logics, i.e. the values, mindsets and motivations behind political authorities and other stakeholders, and how do they impact institutions, normative practices, and policy narratives? How does the urge to scale local innovations impede their creative and disruptive potential? How are the so-called international ‘best practices’ adapted to local circumstances?
We ask these questions bearing in mind that many STS scholars are embedded in transformative projects, that they are part and parcel of the transformation processes they study and that they are likely to play an important role in negotiating the diverse interests of different stakeholders from civil society, the economy, science, and politics. We call for contributions that take a critical position to innovation narratives and practices within their respective fields of research, and that will try to elaborate on alternative approaches or concepts to understand the delicate relations of innovation, governance, and the current transformative aspirations.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Ryan MacNeil (Acadia University)
Short abstract:
In 1973, a fledgling group of innovation scholars labelled the famous "Limits to Growth" as "Models of Doom." Using critical ethnostatistics, I examine the pro-innovation econometrics SPRU developed for this project and its lasting impact on the epistemic culture of innovation research and policy.
Long abstract:
Histories of innovation research and policy highlight the centrality of the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU) at the University of Sussex. The writings of Christopher Freeman especially, but also many other SPRU researchers, played a significant role in establishing innovation studies as a field of research and in establishing innovation policy as a distinct framework for governmental thinking about the economy. SPRU research shaped innovation models toward a systems approach and normalized statistical measurements toward what became the OECD standards. But before all this, SPRU began building its reputation for econometric analysis with its first book: “Thinking about the future: a critique of the Limits to Growth” (1973).
The “Limits to Growth” (1972) had been a major attempt to quantitatively falsify the assumption that endless growth is possible on a finite planet. The SPRU response was one of many that presented alternative (political) assumptions and econometric modelling. It advanced the view that sufficient technological progress could overcome any natural limits. And when it was reprinted for an international audience as “Models of Doom” (1973), the SPRU book helped characterize the Club of Rome as overly pessimistic doomsayers. Others have examined the impact of this early SPRU research within the “Limits…” debate. But in this paper, I consider the impact this work had on the developing fields of innovation research and policy. Taking a critical ethnostatistics approach, I argue that the pro-innovation econometrics SPRU developed for “Models of Doom” had a lasting impact on the epistemic culture of innovation studies.
Signe Vikkelsø (Copenhagen Business School)
Long abstract:
The role of research in society is a topic of long debate, with multiple models and paradigms coexisting or replacing each other. The most recent trend focuses on directing research towards societal needs and grand challenges to foster innovative solutions. In this paper, we argue that the turn towards grand challenges and "transformative innovation" represents, to some degree, a new mix of previous ideas about the role of research in society. We also argue that STS and innovation studies can benefit from examining such intersections of past, present, and emerging ideas.
To address this, we develop a comparative framework for analyzing innovation programs in terms of three basic rationales for the role of research: “science,” “market,” and “mission.” First, we trace the historical sources of the rationales and provide examples of their contemporary presence across contexts and vernaculars. Second, we apply the framework to analyze the Danish government’s most recent innovation strategy, “Green Solutions of the Future,” encompassing a portfolio of specific initiatives. We demonstrate how the strategy continues to prioritize market and science rationales, despite rhetorically emphasizing green missions.
We argue that the comparative framework is a useful tool for identifying overt or covert continuities and discontinuities in innovation programs, including novelties across and beyond the basic rationales. Mapping such ideational patterns is valuable for understanding deeper currents in innovation trends and specific projects and foreseeing the organizational and political challenges they entail.
Karina Maldonado-Mariscal (TU Dortmund University) Rick Hölsgens (TU Dortmund University)
Long abstract:
With growing awareness of limits to growth, debates around sufficiency and degrowth rise to prominence. At the same time, we still witness a great divide between the global ‘north’ and the ‘south’ and innovation, or lack thereof, is oftentimes seen as vital determining factor. In this article we look at two alternative approaches to innovation that place equality and sustainability at centre stage. From a global north perspective, the concept of exnovation of unsustainable practices and technologies has been gaining prominence. Whereas a global south perspective, predominantly in South America, the concept of buen vivir calls for responsible and nature-inclusive approaches to innovation and development. This article presents a reflexive approach that analyses the two alternative pathways of innovation. This study is based on a qualitative review of recent research on these two concepts. We did identify the main characteristics of both concepts in relation to four dimensions within each concept a) Technological, b) Environmental, c) Economic, and d) Social). We contextualise this analysis within theoretical debates in the global North and South in order to better understand its development and historical context, with the aim of contributing to a better understanding of alternative concepts of innovation.
Keywords: exnovation, buen vivir, alternative pathways, innovation, sustainability, development, directionality
Panita Chatikavanij (Virginia Tech)
Long abstract:
As is true in many nations in the Global South, Thai development policy has significantly centered on the promises of new technologies. Thailand has drawn from the innovation and technology policies of the United States and Europe. In the 1990s, Thailand procured its inaugural satellite technology, which King Bhumibol named, "Thai Communication" (Thaicom),from a US-based company with the hope of becoming more developed and connected.
King Bhumibol and his trustee utilized this satellite infrastructure as a pivotal component of their education initiative, known as the Satellite Television for Distance Learning project. Contrary to its name, which suggests exclusive reliance on satellite television, the project incorporated diverse infrastructures and technologies, which includes mundane technology such as fax, landline, and textbooks, to deliver quality education to Thailand's rural areas. This story reminds us once again: Technology adoption has never been simple, straightforward, or obvious.
This research challenges historical analyses that assume nations passively adhere to technological and innovation determinism, a perspective that diminishes the agency of adopters in creatively utilizing technology. It aims to restore agency to technology importers, shedding light on how users, such as Thailand, actively participated in innovating the use of and creating meaning around technology. The study explores the nuanced ways in which Thailand, as a technology adopter, took part in innovating the use of technology and how they altered and rearranged the satellite technology and other technologies to fulfill their own, locally-inflected, even unique, distance learning project visions.
Raúl Tabarés (Tecnalia) Mika Nieminen (VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland ltd)
Long abstract:
The European Commission (EC) deployed an ambitious strategy around the concept of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) during the 8th Framework Programme for Research and Innovation, also known as “Horizon 2020”. The promotion of RRI across the European Research Area, stressed a particular vision of research and innovation (R&I) aligned to societal expectations and needs. But this strategy was discontinued in the subsequent “Horizon Europe” and the idea of RRI seem to have disappeared from the policy strategy of the EC. This impetus for RRI in Horizon 2020 showed a particular interest in the later stages of the programme for the adoption of the RRI concept at territorial level, as the EC funded a significant number of projects around this topic, and in a variety of fields, during the last stages of Horizon 2020.
This contribution aims to explore how RRI ideals and values are transferred and adopted from the ambitious and generic EU policy strategy to particular regional contexts and particularities. For doing so, we analyze the findings from an EU funded project that aimed to operationalize the concept of RRI into four territories. We argue that the adoption and implementation of RRI demands from different process of contextualization, experimentation and operationalization that can go beyond project lifespans and cannot be captured through quantitative indicators. We explore how notions of responsibility around R&I also deal with directionality of innovation policies.
Ziqiang ZHAO (Tsinghua University) Ping Li (Tsinghua University SIGS)
Long abstract:
Responsible innovation, a policy and academic concept originating from the EU, has experienced a gap in its application outside Europe due to cultural and practical differences. The Journal of Responsible Innovation thus introduces humanizing responsible innovation to explore more proactive development of the concept.
This paper uses the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge (HZMB), a famous Chinese project, as a case to investigate the agency practices and strategies within responsible innovation. The HZMB authority innovatively integrates health, safety, and environmental (HSE) management from the petrochemical industries, embedding responsible principles such as safety and environmental protection into practice. As a structured action, the HSE Management System enforces responsibility more rigidly and mandatorily than the voluntary self-awareness emphasized in European practice. Under the HSE, the paper identifies two types of agency practices: compliance, which strictly adheres to HSE regulations, and contingency, which involves addressing unforeseen situations through procedural documentation and negotiation with stakeholders, followed by incorporating successful solutions into the HSE.
The paper underscores that humanizing RRI is not solely individual-centric but requires collaborative efforts from both collective and individual agents. Collective entities are pivotal in maintaining compliance, while individuals contribute with innovative, context-specific solutions. The structured action of HSE is a critical prerequisite, allowing responsible innovation to be institutionalized into binding procedures and behaviours, offering valuable insights for further reflection and emulation from the perspective of Chinese practice.
Lucy van Eck (Erasmus University)
Long abstract:
Public administration scholars have long debated the relationship between the public sector and the knowledge it so eagerly seeks to support its (evidence-based) service delivery and decision-making (Miller, 2004; Porter, 2020; Wiig, 2002). The latest iteration in this process is the creation of innovation labs (i-labs), islands of experimentation producing novel types of knowledge to support (an increasingly digitising) public sector (Cole, 2022; Iho & Missonier, 2021; Tõnurist, Kattel, & Lember, 2017). This paper contributes to these epistemological debates through an ethnographic study of such an i-lab in the Netherlands. Combining over two hundred hours of participant observation with narrative interviews, this thesis aims to narrate the life of knowledge in a public innovation lab.
In alignment with the object of study, the analysis is structured in a novel format of its own: by way of a fairy tale. In doing so, this paper answers recent scholarly calls (e.g. from Beauchamps (2021) and Haraway (1988)) for ‘doing academia differently’, and pushing the boundaries of our disciplining writing practices. By incorporating creative writing into the scientific method and thus embodying the innovative practices observed at the i-lab, this paper aims to support an increasingly digitising and virtualising public sector as well as contribute to academic debates on knowledge as an actant in public sector innovation (Latour, 2007; Twum-Darko & Harker, 2017; Wickramasinghe, Tatnall, & Bali, 2012).
Peter Kahlert (European New School of Digital Studies (European University Viadrina))
Long abstract:
Social innovators shove marginalized subjects into throats of labor based alienation and exploitation, and they populate niches in economically developing regions; using individuals with autism-spectrum disorder to hunt for bugs in code, or selling cheap glasses in developing countries. Social innovation is notoriously packed with ambiguity. It might be a driver for transformative processes, or perpetuating exploitation and maintaining disparity in disguise.
Social Innovation attracts money. Profiting of a social innovation funding scheme for higher education myself, I dedicated these resources to the creation of a critical framework for social innovation education. I present insights, experiences, and learnings from that endeavor. We tested our approach with a class aimed at entrepreneurial students. The seminar introduces a systemic understanding of social innovation that contains said ambiguity and considers social innovation processes themselves as interferences with institutions and systems of social practice. By incorporating feminist approaches and social criticism concepts such as Bourdieu's theory of habitus and fields, Frankfurt School, and Butlerian intersectionality, the course highlights gendered issues of entrepreneurship and how social innovation imaginaries might corroborate hegemonic normality, subjectivation, and erasing the unintelligible. The class concludes with a social innovation event that incorporates critical insights from research on similar events, such as hackathons. Thus, we use project-progress forms that critically asks about cui bono and cui malo. We also promote other means for social impact, like art and activism, that are more suited to provoke democratic dialogues and channel political power rather than making working around governance a business model.
Kate Byron (University of BristolUniversity of Exeter)
Long abstract:
This paper critically engages with the innovation and transformation narratives present in the UK government’s digital border and migration strategies. Through empirical research that examines the digital operationalisation of the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) – a scheme which settled EU citizens in the UK after Brexit – this paper traces the complex entanglements that produce EU citizens as (il)legible to the system in unexpected ways, contradicting some of the aims of the UK government’s digital innovation narratives.
Academic and civil society critics of digital bordering have highlighted the various ways in which these forms of digital innovation have created specific types of vulnerability and precarity. However, this paper goes further. By focusing on practices of innovation and examining the ways in which the political context, commercial relationships, civil service practices and IT materialities are entangled within the digitalisation process, it demonstrates how new types of vulnerabilities are produced as some individuals become incomprehensible to the digital system.
This paper argues that exploring the practices of innovation helps us to understand their consequences and allows us to critically engage with pro-innovation strategies. Further, by intricately tracing the entanglements and the tensions they produce, the paper highlights how digital innovation processes could be done differently.
Cristina Ghita (Uppsala University) Mike Hazas (Uppsala University) Wentong Cai (Uppsala University)
Long abstract:
As Sweden is transitioning from a traditional to a smart energy grid, many required changes target the everyday behaviours in the household. Towards this goal, smart technologies implementation aims to allow users to automate and control their electricity use in an optimal way, in this way helping an already overburdened grid.
To this end, studies have been conducted to understand how users interact with smart home technologies and potentially change their behaviours in terms of electricity consumption. Seen as an innovative and cost-efficient way paving the road towards a de-carbonised future, the discourse around such solutions is overwhelmingly positive. However, narratives of participants choosing to not adopt these technologies or to discontinue their participation in studies are often ignored and not included in the end reports.
Against this background, we focus on the household members who discontinued their use of smart technologies meant to optimize their energy consumption. Looking at such examples of discontinuity in a process of digital transformation perceived as positive, innovative, and often presented as necessary, is informative of the inherent assumptions of scholars navigating the research process, of stakeholders involved in developing these technologies, and of governing bodies.
Taking an assemblage perspective, we conceptualize the decision of not adopting the specific technologies as part of a sociomaterial configuration anchored in its specific spatiotemporality. The work further invites for a discussion about possible methodologies for studying non-use not as a deficit, but as an informed choice.
Sanna Tuomela (University of Vaasa, University of Oulu) Jouni K Juntunen (University of Vaasa, School of technology and innovations)
Long abstract:
Households increasingly pay attention to innovative ways to energy consumption aiming at energy conservation, demand flexibility and transition from fossil fuels towards clean energy. The means and paths in households for sustainable and flexible energy consumption are manifold. Diversity of residents, household composition, living conditions, and the values of individuals are among the many factors that affect home energy management innovations. This study focuses on gender dimension in energy-relevant innovations in homes on four layers. First, based on literature and statistics we apply a gender lens in analysis on how and by whom home energy management innovations are defined. Secondly, we summarize the findings on gendered adoption and use of innovative home energy management technologies. Thirdly, we identify and analyze gendered innovations and adoption of innovations for home energy management based on two empiric research datasets collected in homes: Sensory ethnographic interview and observation data collected in 28 households in the context of home energy technologies and energy behavior, and interview data from 96 interview on energy communities. Lastly, we propose pathways for enhancing the current gendered conceptualization of home energy innovations and for inclusiveness in the whole residential energy management ecosystem. The research contributes to the inclusive conceptualization and recognition of home energy innovations, strengthening and enhancing the energy technology and energy behavior innovation base, consequently increasing sustainability impacts and democratic and engaging green, digital and social transition.
Laura Kesore (LISIS - UGE, Paris)
Long abstract:
The core premise of sustainability transitions is the transition from unsustainable to sustainable systems, which is characterised by the destabilisation of existing structures. While the "flipside of transition and innovation" underscores the phasing-out of unsustainable systems, understanding why and how organisations destabilise ostensibly sustainable systems remains a gap. Thus, this study explores how strategic decisions for the discontinuation of operations interact with system level resilience. This study seeks to position the destabilisation and revival of sustainable systems within the socio-technical contexts in which they unfold. Analysing the discontinuation of the German night train as a prescient case for this purpose, the overarching aim is to provide insights into the dynamic nature of sustainability and its impact on strategic decision-making. Drawing from German transition studies literature, various academic fields, newspapers, and policy documents, the study delves into the circulation of sustainability discourse. Focusing on the use of narratives to justify sustainability strategies, it examines how organisations manage discontinuations. The research unravels the historical development of sustainability discourse and develops a specific German vocabulary, shedding light on the complex relationships between language, meaning, and strategic decision-making in sustainability transitions. Addressing the central theme of the interplay between stability and change, the study contributes to a better understanding of the dynamics involved. By unravelling the complexity of sustainability and adaptability in organisational strategies, I contribute to broader debates on sustainability transitions and resilience in the face of discontinuity and change.
Vincent Cardon (Université Picardie Jules Verne)
Long abstract:
Most of the literature on DDT represents its withdrawal as a major public decision resulting from the mobilisation of environmental movements that drew public attention on the damages related to its massive and pervasive use. This chemical compound which used to be considered as a magic solution to eradicate crop pests and fight insect-borne diseases like malaria, became in 3 decades an iconic poisonous product.
Based on a comparative analysis of the national dynamics of crop-protection regulation in USA and France, this paper shows however that the DDT ban wasn’t a major challenge for the socio-technical regime of pesticides. On the contrary and by many ways it has enhanced the legitimacy of the pesticide regulatory actors to control pesticide hazards. More generally, this phasing out of a molecule did not lead to a radical change in the socio-technical system of pesticides. It rather led to major adaptations of the incumbent regime allowing its re-stabilization thanks to the integration of the critique, the invention of alternatives to limit some identified externalities, and to detach from structuring technologies. By helping incumbents to establish the scale of regulation at the level of the molecule, the DDT ban has been a laboratory for organising a continuous discontinuation dynamics, thus perpetuating the use of pesticides in agriculture. This case study highlights the importance of outnovation - withdrawing a key element of a socio-technical regime - for innovation.