Are transitions place dependent? What role can regional innovation policy

play in transitions?

January 9th Mexico City

Matias Ramirez

Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex Matias.ramirez@sussex.ac.uk

• Transformative innovation is defined by:– Radical transitions at the socio technical scale (regime change)

in areas such as mobility, health, energy and food– Transitions are reliant on distributed agency in the construction

of niches with strategic agency.

• Regions are spaces that can influence the potential for transformative innovation.– Regions are defined by proximity of actors and this can create

unique spaces for niches to emerge

• A framework for transitions at the socio-spatial scale (regional diversity) is required

• “Relatedness” is an important driver of regional diversification through output (product, industry, technology) or other measures of relatedness (employment, skills).

• Assumes routines are geographically distributed and this leads to industrial specialisation.

• Local Institutions reinforce each other.

Regional Innovation in frame 1 and 2 ?Related Variety

(Boschma, Hausmann)

For example: Steel making in Sheffield (UK)

Potteries in Lancashire

Globalisation has made the region more, not less important

PATENTS: Just a few places produce most of the world’s innovations.

Source: Richard Florida

The world is not

flat

Our world is amazingly spiky. In terms of both sheer economic activity and cutting-edge innovation, surprisingly few regions truly matter in today’s global economy’ (Florida, 2005:p.48).

Assumption of “relatedness”, Product = TreeAll Products = Fores

Monkey = Firms in country

How far do firms have to jump to achieve diversify?

The level of technological sophistication, the inputs or outputs involved in a product’s value chain (e.g., cotton,yarn, cloth, and garments) or requisite institutions.

Regional policy instruments that can aid “related” diversification

• Clusters: Agglomerations encourage collaboration and competition

• Value chains and upgrading• Regional systems of innovation instruments can address local

system failures: business incubators, regional productivity centres, technology parks and knowledge transfer offices

• Smart Specialisation emphasizes design and implementation of policies to meet local needs by specialization through participation rather than top-down planning

Is this an adequate frame for thinking about regional policy in Mexico?

• Related variety assumes that market competition and innovation is an endogenous process undertaken mainly by the private sector. But much investment in innovation in Latin America is undertaken by the State and there is little discussion of human agency (policy, pressure groups, local agreements and alliances)

• What to do where regions have “organisational thinness” i.e. there is no pre-existing industrial base? Very common in Latin America and developing countries

• Existing frames are largely static and provide little scope to address persistent societal challenges: climate change (for example moving from oil to wind farming?), mobility, health and food that require “unrelated change” and/or socio technical change

Regional innovation policy and transformations:

market failure - system failure - transformative failure

• Can regional policy makers develop policies to steer STI in a particular direction?

• Can regional policy makers develop policies to take on board and understand user-needs?

• Can policies take advantage of local capabilities and synergies ?

• Is there reflection and adjustment in policies?

Transformative innovation at the regional level?

• A “territorial” approach would suggest that socio technical regimes are locally created and aligned with local knowledge, territorial institutions and locally generated vested interests

• A key enabling factor is the ability to mobilize proximate (and distant) actors

• New paths emerge not from external shocks but from the strategic agency in heterogeneous actor groups that jointly act upon locked-in structures and mobilize resources to create a new industry

Why regions are relevant for transitions?

• Cultural and value proximity facilitate the creation of new value system fundamental for transitions

• Ease the creation of new participatory schemes for both decision making and problem framing enabling changes of governance required for transitions

• Better locations for policy maneuvering to facilitate emergence, shield and nurture of niches

• Facilitate integration of local socio-environmental and economic objectives without loosing power to tilt regional, national and global regimes

• Utilise the local capabilities to generate knowledge and technological development to address socio-environmental needs

• Appropriate level for second order learning and reflexivity due to cultural and value proximities (social capital)

Examples of regional policy to encourage agency

– The Bristol pound: Complementary currency to build shorter supply chains.

Market of Hope

Santander, Spain. Many different producers, connected to local people and produce.

Four principles of regional transformative innovation policy (?)

(1) Human agency

(2) Bricolage

(3) Alignment

(4) Experimentation

Human agency is distributed: Broader groups involved: users, policy makers, scientists, consumers,

social movements Bricolage:

Multiplicity of actors embedded in networks who collectively draw on a broad set of distributed resources such as money, material components, discourses, knowledge, legitimacy and skills, organizational arrangements and political regulation in order to create new industrial pathways through processes of mindful deviation

(3) New Directions: Alignment• Socio technical alignment involves radically improving societal systems of provision

in order to comply with conditions of sustainability in, for example, energy, mobility, water, housing and food involving heterogeneous actors (including extra regional). – Alignment between regulative, cognitive, normative institutions involving alignment between institutions and

technologies and industry and institutions (legitimacy).

• For example evolution of German solar photovoltaic industry:– Until 1990s lacked a market– 1990s technologists, anti-nuclear activists, communal policy makers formed strategic alliance

(p[rovate rooftop solar systems) and lobbied to adjust grid reguations for solar PV.– National feed-in tariff provided support – Financial support and investment

• The more aligned these formation processes are in a region, the more resources get mobilized for local actors and the anchoring of external resources and improved conditions for territorially distinct path dependence path (Binz et al 2015).

(4) Regional policy experimentation

Definition:“an inclusive, practice-based and challenge-led initiative

designed to promote system innovation through social learning under conditions of uncertainty and ambiguity.”

“the state, firms, local actors and intermediaries work in small-scale repeated interactions in an attempt to (re)define regional

development support services and priorities in a collective manner, establish specific targets and responsibilities and

monitor outcomes in a way that facilitates learning on the part of those in a position to respond” (Senger set al 2016)

Need to differentiate classical innovation experiments from thoseassociated with transitions

Different approximations to regional strategy

ESTRATEGIA REGIONAL: “resultado de un procesoconsciente, formulado en un documento escrito,denominado normalmente ‘estrategia, plan,programa de competitividad o desarrollo regional’.Después, los diferentes actores se comprometencon el resultado de la planificación estratégica yemprenden su implantación.”

Classic

ESTRATEGIA REGIONAL: “proceso comunicativo, por el que diferentesobjetivos y estrategias de múltiples actores se reconcilian y diversosintereses se equilibran, y constantemente se persiguen y coordinanpuntos de encuentro y medios concretos entre múltiples objetivos.Durante ese proceso continuo, diversos objetivos y estrategias deorganizaciones individuales se hacen tan paralelos como sea posible,por comunicación y negociación”

procesual

Regional innovation policy in Latin America

Logic of innovation policy Policy features

• Innovation as engine of economic growth and progress

– Led by market logic to allocate resources and innovative activities

– Problems are defined mainly in terms of competitiveness and economic growth

– Aiming for prioritization of sectors with highest market opportunities

• Normative

– Not experimental, first order learning mainly

– With some elements of directionality mainly in prioritization of areas

• Agendas and components will be determined by the level of involvement of productive sector, universities, R&D centres and government actors

– Technocratic not highly inclusive

• Focused on functionality of systems and actors

• Justification for policy intervention:

– Overcome systems failures

• Policy’s strategies

– Promote localized economic and innovative agglomerations

– Increase knowledge generation

– Boost demand for knowledge by the private sector

– Strengthen interactions amongst actors of the system (not including civil society)

– Civil society is addressed through social appropriation of STI policy instruments

• Main operational forms of regional innovation policy (co-exist and overlap)

– Clusters

– Regional Innovation Systems / Smart specialization strategies

– Science and Technology Parks

Case studies of regional policy engagement and transformation in

Colombia

Case studies of regional policy and transformation in ColombiaCaso Region Discussion

1 Un sistema de educación inclusiva Antioquia Que es una política educativa marco 3?

2 Evaluación de las herramientas de evaluación utilizadas por RUTA N

Medellin Desarrollo de herramientas de evaluacion del marco 3

3 La Stevia como cultivo alternativo para pequeños agricultores en áreas post-conflicto

Santander Norte Creando nichos donde estos aún no existen

4 Gastronomía lenta en la región del Atlántico Barranquilla :¿Cómo actores del régimen pueden ayudar a la actividad de base y de nicho?

5 Crear una línea de base "marco 3" para la evaluación de la intervención política del programa de jóvenes como agentes de cambio en el Tolima

Tolima construir una evaluación que priorice la participación de la comunidad en el territorio

6 Un análisis de la iniciativa de laboratorio de fab "Vive Labs" en Bogotá

Bogota Crear una narrativa transformadorade fablabs: democrátizar la tecnología

7 Un análisis de los planes territoriales desarrollados para Cauca, con un enfoque en el café

Cauca Reconstrucción local inclusiva en el marco del acuerdo de paz

8 Obteniendo apoyo para las políticas regionales del marco 3 a través de un análisis crítico de las políticas actuales en el Valle del Cauca

Valle de Cauca Crear apoyo de actores de política regional para instrumentos de innovación transformativa

Common challenges reflect both system and transformational failures

• Absence of transformative narrative in grassroots activities (remain marginal)

• Absence of networks able to bring together initiatives and transform them into transformative niches (regulation standards upscale)

• Policy does not always facilitate experimentation (fear of failure)• Policy makers are there to facilitate (rather than make initiatives)• Requires specialised mobilizers, intermediaries, brokers.