Montalvo, Carlos ((ND)TNO
Behavioural dynamics and system innovation
Authors: Carlos Montalvo, Jordi Molas-Gallart, Jürgen Howaldt, Caroline Resende-Haddad
Keywords: innovation policy, transformative change, behavioural additionality, systemic interactions, value driven policy
Abstract
This track aims to continue the collaboration and dialogue between two communities of scholars and policymakers working at the intersection of transformative change and policy-making. One community (“Behavioural Sciences for Policy”, BSP) uses behavioural sciences to analyse policy and design interventions targeting individuals. The other (“Innovation Policy”, STIP) uses heterodoxic and multidisciplinary frameworks from the humanities to influence the framework conditions and foster innovation in individuals and institutions. Both communities made significant progress to understand the factors driving either change at the individual or at the systemic level. The strand of research looking into behavioural determinants and preferences of transformative innovation is taking pace across topics and sectors. This new strand of research is the result of the STIP field looking for alternative approaches to accelerate innovation development and uptake to face the great challenges for society. This is specially the case in the current geopolitical landscape where innovation is placed as cornerstone for values like securing a fair, autonomous, secure, competitive and sustainable Europe. How can we best balance the different interests and stances of the heterogeneous stakeholders pursuing such values that might have conflictive agendas? Building in the past experiences of the last two symposiums “Dialogue between behavioural and innovation sciences on Transformative change and systems innovation, we invite contributions to address the gaps that pervade behavioural sciences and innovation research when looking to diagnose and create roadmaps for scale up of transformative change.
BSP: Three key gaps can be identified: 1) Contextual variables are often neglected, despite their substantial influence on behaviours (e.g., income, education level, location, knowledge, resources or gender). We find gaps in understanding of how social roles and people’s understanding of their role (citizen, policymaker, entrepreneur) within a community or innovation ecosystem affect behaviour and decision making. 2) Research and intervention programs target individual behaviours in isolation, whereas transformative change is characterised by a set of interconnected behaviours. Yet, BSP has difficulty understanding, let alone measuring or modelling complex interactions with other behaviours as well as unintended consequences of interventions. 3) Studies focus either on individual or collective action, overlooking the interplay between them. Recently acknowledged the importance of an in-depth understanding of individual, values, behavioural drivers and motivations, contextual factors, and interactions between various actors (e.g., peers, businesses, institutions).
STIP: The challenge for innovation policy design lies in directing technical change as well as fostering the willingness of individuals and institution to engage. Existing frameworks applied to research and policy provide a high-level description of the system, encompassing institutions, regulations, industries, and technologies. However, they often lack the necessary depth to effect behavioural change (often called behavioural additionality) among actors within an innovation ecosystem. The field needs to address questions such as: What motivates citizens, institutional actors, and businesses to engage in transformative innovation and change? What are the critical behavioural levers at the individual and collective levels that best inform the design of interventions and policy instruments? In addition, the field at large has unsolved questions surrounding the (ex-ante) prediction as well as the (ex post) measurement of impact and behavioural additionality of interventions at the system level.
In general, both communities have an overarching question: How do we scale up behavioural additionality of current policy interventions? The track welcomes contribution addressing the gaps outlined above taking into account the relevance of such research on the light of the fast moving geopolitical landscape that sees innovation as a cornerstone for competitiveness and security of the European block. Novel contributions will serve as springboards to share experiences and support the dialogue.