Low-carbon development and inclusive innovation systems

Abstract

Low-carbon development (LCD) is a process of structural change of unprecedented magnitude that includes radical changes in technology, institutions, values and policies. It has been proposed that inclusive institutions are crucial for enabling structural change by facilitating different processes of creative destruction. There are reasons to believe that inclusion is also crucial for achieving LCD. We explore why and how social inclusion may support LCD. In so doing, we bridge a gap between research on social inclusion and innovation, on the one hand, and LCD, on the other. We combine the ideas of systems of innovation and inclusive institutions to propose a new conceptualization of inclusive innovation systems, and we propose six mechanisms through which inclusion enables development. We conclude that the world must attempt to establish an inclusive and low-carbon system of innovation at the global level to achieve LCD.

Innovation Systems for Transformations towards Sustainability? Taking the Normative Dimension Seriously

“…Therefore, scholars have paid insufficient attention to the ethical acceptability and societal desirability of innovations. With this, we do not want to imply that IS scholars have completely neglected sustainability considerations (e.g., see [24,28,[76][77][78][79][80][81][82][83]). Nevertheless, many of the approaches-particularly the so-called sustainable systems of innovation [79,80] or sustainability-oriented innovation systems [77,82]-remain focused on technological innovation with the aim of environmental protection.…”

“…An IS framework incorporating such institutions has been introduced as inclusive IS, in which "relatively high levels of inclusion characterize the processes of learning and innovation and in which there is a relatively strong focus on innovation addressing the needs of the lower income strata" [81] (p. 284). The inclusive IS framework has been used to analyze a set of empirical cases to show how social inclusion impacts the (wicked) challenges of a low-carbon development.…”

“…Furthermore, including key stakeholders becomes a necessary and integral part of innovation policies [183]. Aside from the substantive value of participation [191], mobilizing many actors at multiple scales can create legitimacy in general [192,193] and for sustainability goals [19,81,194,195] of an IS in particular.…”

Inclusive Innovation in Developed Countries: The Who, What, Why, and How

“…At a high level, policy developers and citizens look to innovation to contribute to the solution of society's "grand challenges" (Kallerud et al, 2013), but there are also specific issues to which innovation is expected to make contributions, such as the introduction of low-carbon technologies (Andersen & Johnson, 2015), agriculture and development (Joseph, 2014), and education. The emphasis on these expectations has increased substantially over the past 15 years (Hicks, 2016;Lindner et al, 2016), and researchers have suggested that it may lead to a new social contract of science and innovation and may fundamentally transform both science and policy making (Kuhlmann & Rip, 2014).…”

“…Substantial changes to the way innovation occurs will also require institutional flexibility in the innovation system (Andersen & Johnson, 2015) along the lines of the better governance principles and processes called for by the RRI literature (Owen et al, 2012;von Schomberg, 2012), including "anticipation, participation, deliberation, transparency-to ensure that the process and direction of R&D and innovation better take into account societal preferences and concerns around ethics, sustainability" (Edler & Fagerberg, 2017).…”