The Geographies of Mission-Oriented Innovation Policies

• Markus M. Bugge – University of Oslo
• Lars Coenen – Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, University of Oslo – Lars.Coenen@hvl.no
• Kieron Flanagan – University of Manchester
• Teis Hansen – University of Copenhagen
• Markus Steen – SINTEF – markus.steen@sintef.no
• Elvira Uyarra – University of Manchester

Recent years have seen renewed interest in societal challenges and problems as drivers for innovation and industrial policy (Mazzucato 2015, 2021; Uyarra et al., 2019; Hekkert et al. 2020). Under the banner of Missions, governments across the world are re-thinking and re-orientating their innovation policy mixes with respect to rationales, objectives, instruments and monitoring practices. In the turn to Missions, the state is suggested to take a more prominent role not limited to ‘fixing’ what markets cannot or will not do. To build more inclusive and sustainable economies, the state is supposed to actively shape and co-create markets and innovation systems.

Scholars are debating, among others, whether and how missions necessitate radically revamping and replacing existing resources, competencies and policies for dealing with climate change and sustainability transitions (Schot and Steinmueller 2018; Fagerberg 2018; Giuliani 2018). Yet we see surprisingly little place sensitivity or recognition of policy complexities and dynamics in the debates about Missions (Coenen et al, 2015; Coenen and Morgan, 2020). There also remains a disconnection between this agenda and long-standing efforts to promote ‘smart specialization’ (Wanzenböck and Frenken, 2020; Hassink and Gong, 2019; Miedzinski et al., 2021). It also seems strangely disconnected from relevant work on the geography of sustainability transitions (Binz et al, 2020).

At the same time there is a need for Missions to operate at multiple levels, i.e. targeting global challenges on the one hand while ensuring a localized approach to specific geographical characteristics, resources and institutions on the other. This requires a better understanding how mission-oriented innovation policies play out in multi-level governance and balance tensions between top-down and bottom-up approaches (Bugge et al., 2021; Uyarra and Flanagan 2021).

In this session we invite contributions that aims to investigate these topics and challenges, as well as other aspects related to the development and implementation of mission-oriented innovation policies. Topics that may be addressed may include (but are not limited to) the following:

• Empirical contributions documenting actual cases of mission-oriented innovation policies
• Conceptual approaches to and understanding of mission-oriented innovation policies
• Whether, how and why (the effects of) MOIP vary geographically
• The role of MOIP at different geographical scales
• Place-based conditions for different types of MOIP (e.g. smaller-scale ‘accelerator’ initiatives vs larger and more transformative missions)
• MOIP variation across varieties of capitalism/different institutional contexts
• Institutional entrepreneurship addressing the need for inter-sectoral approaches in MOIP
• Investigations into the political processes that underpin mission-oriented innovation policies
• Policy measures that may underpin MOIP (e.g. demand-oriented policies, such as innovative public procurement)
• Understand how MOIP as a policy concept travels across space (policy mobility)

References

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• Bugge, M. M., Andersen, A. D., & Steen, M. (2021). The role of regional innovation systems in mission-oriented innovation policy: exploring the problem-solution space in electrification of maritime transport. European Planning Studies, 1-22.
• Coenen, L., & Morgan, K. (2020). Evolving geographies of innovation: existing paradigms, critiques and possible alternatives. Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift-Norwegian Journal of Geography, 74(1), 13-24.
• Coenen, L., Hansen, T., & Rekers, J. V. (2015). Innovation policy for grand challenges. an economic geography perspective. Geography Compass, 9(9), 483-496.
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