Innovations play a central role in addressing societal challenges, such as climate change and social exclusion. Yet, science, technology, and innovation policy – hereafter ‘innovation policy’ – has often focused on economic growth rather than these pressing issues. To redirect innovation towards addressing societal challenges, mission-oriented innovation policy has been suggested as a promising approach. However, when governments try to apply this approach, they often struggle to meet the requirements of the literature because the missions formulated lack clear, time-bound goals, and the implementation of policy instruments is insufficiently coordinated across policy domains. Consequently, the literature shows that governments struggle to meet these requirements, but there is a gap in our understanding of why this is the case. I have therefore formulated the following overarching research question for this thesis: Why do governments struggle to formulate and implement missions?
To address this gap, I draw on insights from a case study of a policy process in Norway where the government aimed to introduce a mission-oriented innovation policy at the national level. By interviewing and observing the actors involved in the different stages of the policy process (except for the evaluation stage) and by combining theoretical perspectives from innovation studies and policy sciences, I highlight challenges policymakers face when they attempt to formulate and implement missions, such as coordinating policymakers from different government organizations who might have conflicting values and worldviews at the formulation stage, the need to balance ambition with political feasibility at the decision-making stage, and how institutional and capacity constraints limit their ability to conduct their work in new ways throughout the stages of the policy process covered in this case study.
Thesis supervisors
Professor Taran Thune, TIK Centre for Technology, Innovation and Culture, University of Oslo
Professor Jens Jungblut, Department of Political Science, University of Oslo
Commentator
Professor Åse Gornitzka, Department of Political Science, University of Oslo
About Silje Marie Svartefoss
Silje Svartefoss is a Doctoral Research Fellow at TIK Center for Technology, Innovation and Culture, University of Oslo. Her PhD is part of the the Centre for the study of innovation policy for industrial transformation, sustainability and digitalization (INTRANSIT). In her PhD project, she studies the different governance approaches for sustainability transitions and explores how policy can be transformed to support the emergence of sustainability transitions.
How to participate
The seminar is open for everyone to join - either in person or online (ZOOM: https://uio.zoom.us/j/64964873645). Welcome!
The manuscript is available upon request. Please send the request to the candidate at s.m.svartefoss@tik.uio.no.