Policymaking for Innovation: the Role of Distributed Intelligence

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Policymaking for Innovation the Role of
Distributed Intelligence

• Stefan KuhlmannFraunhofer Institute for Systems
  and Innovation Research (ISI)Karlsruhe, Germany

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Overview

• Analysing the dynamics of innovation systems
• From mechanistic" to reflexive" innovation
  strategies and policymaking
• Arenas for decision-making
• Strategic Intelligence (SI) for Innovation
  Strategy and Policy tools
• General requirements of SI
• Application of SI (examples)
• Fictions of future use of Distributed
  Intelligence
• SI infrastructures for Distributed Intelligence

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Focus Dynamics of Innovation Systems
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From "Mechanistic" to Reflexive" Innovation
Strategies and Policymaking (I)

• Strategy targets from competitiveness of single
  companies, to linking science industry,
  to modernisation of holdings, sectors,
  regions, and national "innovation systems
  (e.g. interdisciplinary instit.), to
  post-national strategies across levels (in
  EU), to socio-economic change and
  sustainable development
• Potential impacts/benefits from rd results, to
  innovative products/processes, to raising
  awareness of innovation needs, to increasing
  learning and "absorptive capacities", to
  individual and institutional change
• Policy means from rd subsidies to adoption of
  new technologies, to liaison/brokerage
  services, to continuing education, to
  regulatory policies, to multi-purpose,
  multi-actor initiatives, to
  post-nationally orchestrated multi-level
  initiatives

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From "Mechanistic" to "Reflexive" Innovation
Strategies and Policymaking (II)

• Policy actors from sectoral policymakers/benefi
  ciaries, to industrial innovation networks
  (increasingly international), to
  multi-sector/multilevel policy networks
  (stretching from science through industry
  and policymakers to consumer orgs. and
  NGOs)
• Strategic policy development (public and
  private) from path dependency/
  institutional conservatism, to
  performance measurement (legitimization) to
  socio-economic assessment of mid-term performance
  to reflexive policy learning with
  contesting stakeholders
• ? need for multi-perspective learning,
  foresight and planning i.e. Strategic
  Intelligence (SI)"

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Innovation Policy Stakeholders Arena

• Differing interests, perspectives and values
• No dominant player?
• Contested policies
• Need for consensus?

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Innovation Strategy- making Arena of Global
Multi-centred Corporations (stylized)

• Differing interests, perspectives and values
• Dominant player?
• Contested strategies
• Need for consensus?

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Distributed Arenas and Strategic Intelligence
...
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Dynamics of Innovation Systems and Strategic
Intelligence
Sectors, technologies retrospectively,
prospectively
Actors Companies Science Policymakers
Innovationprocesses micro, meso, macro
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Strategic Intelligence (SI) for Innovation
Strategy and Policy ...

• ... builds on enhanced tools like

• Policy strategy evaluation
• Technology society foresight
• Technology assessment

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Innovation Policy Strategy Evaluation

• State of the art
• from peer review (ex ante ex post) to impact
  analysis broad variety of methodologies
• some intractable problems biased peers
  attributionof impacts ...
• Practical use in policymaking
• ranging from legitimization of funding, to
  support for fund allocation decisions ...
• to support for stakeholder-oriented mediation of
  decisionmaking
• Enhanced tool for strategic intelligence ...
• e.g. combination of impact evaluation with
  foresight exercises may improve policy planning
  ...

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Technology and Society Foresight

• State of the art
• standard methods Delphi, workshops, specific
  surveys, seminars, etc. - still improving
• paradoxical nature of TF aiming at conflicting
  goals building consensus and preserving variety
  of visions
• Practical use in policymaking
• during 1990s quite trendy in Europe several
  major national efforts partly combined with
  fund allocation mechanisms
• big companies develop in-house exercises SMEs
  need public initiatives
• Enhanced tool for strategic intelligence ...
• linking national and regional exercises on
  European scale
• linking TF with policy evaluation and TA, e.g.
  for programme design

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Technology Assessment

• State of the art
• systematic experience since 1970s
• broad variety of methodologies, but anticipation
  control dilemma
• Practical use in policymaking
• public service TA focus on risk assessment
• private domain TA picking the winners
  approach
• agenda-building TA seeking for stakeholder
  consensus for technology development
  (Constructive TA)
• Enhanced tool for strategic intelligence ...
• e.g., TA competence (assessing potential techn.
  impacts) could inform TF exercise

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Applying Strategic Intelligence General
Requirements

• Create fora for interaction, negotiation and the
  preparation of decisions
• Organize mediation processes and discourses
  between contesting actors in related policy arena
• Realize thereby the multiplicity of actor's
  values and interests
• Include representatives of less organized or
  weaker societal groups of society (participatory
  approach)
• Inject SI, i.e.policy/strategy evaluation,
  foresight and TA results, also analyses of
  changing innovation processes, the dynamics of
  changing research systems, changing functions of
  public policies
• Facilitate a more objective formulation of
  diverging perceptions by offering appropriate
  indicators, analyses and information-processing
  mechanisms

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Emergence of Strategic Intelligence - the
Example of Regional Technology Plans
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Combining Foresight Results with Evaluation
Purposes - Example System Evaluation of the
Fraunhofer Society (FhG)
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Benchmarking of Innovation Clusters - the
Example of Nanotechnology Competence Centres
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An SME Considering a Strategic Techn. Move
(fiction)
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Developing a New EU Technology Programme
(fiction)
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SI Infrastructures for Distributed Strategic
Intelligence

• Create an architecture of infrastructures for
  Distributed intelligence but not the one
  monolithic/top-down system !
• Link via SI infrastructure the existing
  regional, national, sectorial etc SI facilities,
  horizontally and vertically
• Build brokering nodes managing and maintaining
  the infrastructure (e.g. IPTS, ESTO, ...)
• Offer a directory favouring direct connections
  between relevant actors
• Establish a enabling structure allowing free
  access to all SI exercises undertaken with public
  support (register)
• Define clear rules to access the infrastructure
• Make the infrastructure robust, able to survive
  guarantee adequate resources

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Distributed Strategic Intelligence an
Architecture

• EU Research Area requires SI
• Identification of centres of excellence
  (indicators? arenas?)
• Benchmarking of national research policies
  (indicators? arenas?)
• others ...

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Quality Assurance for Distributed Strategic
Intelligence

• Facilitate repeated and fresh exercises and
  information production (e.g. EV, TF, TA,
  benchmarking, ...) and renewed combinations of
  actors and levels
• Support strong professional associations
• Use informal expert networks (like the Six
  Countries Programme)
• Create accreditation mechanisms
• Support education and training (e.g. postgraduate
  interdisciplinary studies)

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U r s a c h e u n d W i r k u n g. - Vor der
Wirkung glaubt man an andere Ursachen als nach
der Wirkung.Friedrich Nietzsche, Die fröhliche
Wissenschaft, Aphorismus 217, 1882

• Cause and impact. - Before any impact you
  believe in other causes than after the impact.

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• Text
• Kuhlmann, S. / Boekholt, P. / Georghiou, L. /
  Guy, K. / Héraud, J.-A. / Laredo. Ph. / Lemola,
  T. / Loveridge, D. / Luukkonen, T. / Polt, W. /
  Rip, A. / Sanz-Menendez, L. / Smits, R.
  Improving Distributed Intelligence in Complex
  Innovation Systems. Final report of the Advanced
  Science Technology Policy Planning Network
  (ASTPP), a Thematic Network of the European
  Targeted Socio-Economic Research Programme
  (TSER), Brussels/Luxembourg 1999 (Office for
  Official Publications of the European
  Communities) (download www.isi.fhg.de/dept/ti/)

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