Transformative Innovation Policy: insights from Colombia, Finland, Norway, South Africa and Sweden

Abstract

Numerous and critical interlocking economic, social, environmental, technological, political and cultural challenges confront our world. These challenges include resource depletion, environmental degradation, population growth, industrialisation, climate change, urbanisation, inequality and exclusion. While innovation is widely invoked as essential to addressing these challenges, the innovation engine often appears to be faltering with the fruits of creative destruction increasingly morphing into destructive creation. In this chapter, we argue that innovation needs to be redirected in ways that lead to transformative change, and that for transformative change to take place, a different type of policy and policy-making is essential – transformative innovation policy (TIP). In this sense, innovation policy needs to incorporate concerns that relate to the choice of various innovation options, asking questions about which directions of innovative pathways will indeed address the pressing global challenges confronting our world.