Many governments in Europe and beyond have subscribed to mission-oriented innovation policies (MOIPs), aiming to steer innovation systems to directly address grand societal challenges. The emerging diversity of MOIPs, however, creates difficulties to define this approach and assess its effectiveness and efficiency. In this paper, we propose a new typology for MOIPs. It consists of four ideal types of missions and extends the established dichotomy of transformer and accelerator missions. The framework emphasizes the role of the state in MOIPs, drawing attention to the implementation process and governance requirements as key features of mission implementation. A first application across the diverse missions of the German Hightech Strategy 2025 demonstrates the analytical value of the framework and allows identifying type-specific challenges. In sum, the new typology and its operationalization improve the understanding of MOIPs and enhance the possibilities for systematic comparisons and impact assessments.
Mission-oriented policies (MOIP) have become important means to foster transformative change in many countries. Yet, approaches for assessing these policies' impacts are still in their infancy, not least due to the complexity of MOIP. To address this gap, we propose a toolbox approach that supports policy-makers during policy design and implementation, and allows for an identification of potential impacts by a theory-based approach. To disentangle the complexity of missions, we first conceptualize MOIPs as multiple translation processes from mission formulation and design to implementation. Each translation step shapes the policies' impacts. Based on this framework, we develop a set of specific analytical tools that are intended to support the process of bringing missions into realization, but also help to assess whether missions contribute to the postulated goals. These tools include a mapping of the socio-technical systems, a typology to explore the transformative ambition of missions, a process to develop impact pathways, an inventory of policy instruments to support the mission design, and indicators to measure mission progress along the developed pathways. Finally, we propose several analytical questions to explore the context for the development of potential impacts.
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