Auteurs : Boekholt, Patries (editor)
Publicatiedatum : augustus 2002

This volume of IWT-Studies brings together most of the contributions to the Conference on ‘Innovation Policy and Sustainable Development. Can public incentives make a difference?’ held in Brussels, in February 2002.

The Flanders 2002 Conference of the Six Countries Programme (SCP), organised by IWT with the assistance of Technopolis Group, can be regarded as a follow-up to the earlier SCP-Conference organised in 1996 by IWT in Ghent under the title ‘R&D subsidies at stake? In search of a rationale for public funding of R&D’. The issue of the ‘additionality’ of innovation policy now has been enlarged to the contribution to innovation performance for wider, societal goals as sustainable development.

The papers are organized in three blocks. The first, introductory one is on the inter-play between innovation and environmental policy. The second one deals with the question of evaluating the effectiveness of innovation policy as such: does it ‘make a difference’ (the additionality issue). The third block presents country case studies of environmentally sustainable innovation that all entail a particular kind of integration of innovation and environmental policy. A summary presents conclusions from this conference and implications for further work.

1| SETTING THE SCENE

The Position Paper by Patries Boekholt and Jan Larosse starts from the observation that the rationale for innovation policy has been strengthened from a system perspective. It can meet the agenda of sustainable development in terms of innovation for societal objectives. From an economic perspective the missions of innovation policy -reducing market failures due to positive externalities of knowledge production and usage- and of environmental policy -reducing the negative externalities of non-sustainable technologies- can be combined. On the agenda is how to operate an horizontal policy that effectively realizes this goal: is innovation policy effective as a policy instrument, and can it be part of a policy mix that levies progress to sustainable development?

A first series of conference papers was delivered by the keynote speakers, invited to ‘set the scene’, and introduce the two policy traditions that are challenged to contribute together to environmentally sustainable growth.

Ken Guy starts with drawing some lessons on the effectiveness of present day innovation policy from a system perspective. Innovation policy is now expected to serve several masters. Exploring the possibilities of interaction between innovation and environmental policies, he suggests that a beneficial combination has to answer two different questions: what can innovation policy do for sustainable development, and what can environmental policy do for innovation. Applying a successful broad mix requires high levels of ‘strategic intelligence’.

The second paper was presented by George Heaton, who introduced the metaphor of ‘an arranged marriage’ to describe the difficulties and opportunities involved in matching two parties that have a lot in common, both are not able to get acquainted without special commitment and special change-agents. There is a clear under- investment in next generation technologies by the environmental industry, but there is a need to frame these technology developments in new, transformative technological path-ways. The paper of René Kemp is included in this introductory series because it outlines the need for an integrated policy approach towards innovation for the environment. It outlines the model of transition management as a policy approach that can add top-down elements of system innovation (long-term ambition) to bottom-up initiatives (short-term concerns).

2| DOES INNOVATION POLICY MAKE A DIFFERENCE?

The three following papers deal with the question of additionality - what would havehappened if no intervention had taken place - as a way to establish whether policy instruments have any effect. Identifying and measuring the socio-economic effects and impact of innovation policies is high on the agenda of many OECD countries, as a consequence of an increased requirement for accountability in public sector management. In order to establish the positive externalities of knowledge production and diffusion, and not only the benefits for those directly involved in a policy programme, we need to find ways to measure these wider effects. Policy makers are increasingly required to demonstrate effects of policy instruments in quantitative terms.

The first paper by Luke Georghiou takes stock of the progressively broadening approach towards the key issue of additionality of innovation policy: from quantitative approaches and effects on R&D investment (flows), towards behavioural approaches and qualitative effects on capacities in the innovation sys-tem (stocks). The paper explores what the evidence for the impact of innovation policy has been so far. Governments can make a difference in the stimulation of innovation in public goods. But measures to promote R&D in general are less a support mechanism than establishing a public-private partnership to produce innovations in an area that might not have benefited.

There is a school of scholars aiming to measure the longer-term impacts of innovation policy with the help of econometrics. Norway has a long tradition of evaluating a number of innovation policy instruments using quantitative analytical methods. The second paper by Lasse Bræin, Arild Hervik, Erik Nesset and Mette Rye discusses these methods and their problems and provides empirical evidence from a number of Norwegian cases.

The third paper by Erik Arnold and Patries Boekholt discusses how evaluations can help us deciding whether innovation policy works. It also discusses what we do not know because of methodological difficulties. The paper is based on a large number of evaluation studies in various countries.

3| COUNTRY CASES

The following country case studies demonstrate the wide variety of initiatives that are developed to stimulate innovation for environmental sustainability, depending on different development paths and different institutional settings. They illustrate the importance of a broad range of (complementary) options in the achievement of the overall goal.

The Danish study by Jesper Holm et al refers to evidence from sector specific case studies on development of new institutional practices and capacity building and the development of green products on the basis of the win-win philosophy of the predominant model of ‘ecological modernisation’. It was possible to start to integrate environmental and business development policies and to create an interactive ‘green’ responsiveness from business to new regulations and programmes starting from a company focussed policy view. The success of these reflective learning processes is based on the interfacing of different actors and the presence of a social component that enhances the change in business behaviour.

The Dutch EET programme, presented by Corine van As and René Wismeyer, is an example of a mission-oriented approach, coordinating the efforts of three Ministries. It aims to stimulate breakthroughs in themes put forward by government to achieve sustainable development. The latest version stresses the transition to sustainability by systemic innovation as the distinctive objective of funding.

In contrast, the new programme of stimulation of sustainable environmental technology development in Flanders, presented by Paul Zeeuwts, is an example of a bottom-up approach, linked to generic technology and innovation funding programmes. The aim is to stimulate a shift in innovation behaviour towards more environmental benefits in all projects, by selectivity and financial incentives.

The paper by Hans-Günther Schwarz gives an account of the Austrian programme on Technologies for Sustainable development, in particular the two thematic sub-programmes on the House and the Factory of Tomorrow. They are not limited to technology development but include the necessary complements of demonstration projects and knowledge dissemination. The integration of multiple goals and multiple types of innovation is a characteristic of the programme design. As in the other cases evaluation therefore is a rather complex issue.

4| TOWARDS POLICY-INTEGRATION

The Summary of Patries Boekholt attempts to draw some conclusions referring back to the objectives of the conference, namely to see whether a closer integration of innovation policy and environmental policy on the overlap of innovation for sustainable development, is feasible. If the effectiveness of general innovation policy is not clearly established by direct measurement we do know that it is the policy mix that works on the level of innovation systems. Environmental policies have demonstrated some effectiveness in changing behaviour in addressing focussed technological challenges. The challenge now is to extend these more targeted approaches towards a systemic change process affecting the broader business community. We will need further policy innovations in the field of policy integration.