Innovation Policy Platform (video)

This webinar will describe how RLabs leveraged the community and innovative approaches to drive social change in local communities in a number of African countries.

This webinar was created in partnership with the Innovation Policy Platform.

This webinar will cover the Role of Research and Technology Institutes (RTIs), Technological Competencies and Networking, State Financing and Lessons from International Experience.

In the last two decades, effectual entrepreneurship, a cognitive-theoretic approach to action in high-uncertainty environments, has been successfully implemented in universities around the world. This approach spells out particular lessons learned by expert entrepreneurs that can be taught in a classroom. In addition to university courses, efforts are under way to create programs for K-12 and in fields outside business, such as the arts, engineering, and social/public sector. For the webinar, Dr. Sarasvathy will elaborate on five specific policy implications based on effectual entrepreneurship. These can be summarized as follows:

Teach entrepreneurship to everyone, not only to potential entrepreneurs

Collect data on exits

Focus on growing the middle class of businesses, not gazelles

Create an experienced entrepreneur corps of mentors

Learn to think about employment differently

Put simply, effectuation enables anyone and everyone to work with things already within their control to co-create a better future. For info on course content and supporting research: effectuation.org

While climate change represents a massive threat to the planet and imperils progress made in economic development, it also represents an historic opportunity to innovate in large and rapidly growing markets. The World Bank estimates that climate-related sectors will garner $6.4 trillion in investment over the next decade in developing countries alone. The urgency for climate technology innovation is growing as the effects of climate change becomes a reality and more actions are implemented to address it.

During this webinar, Jonathan Coony will discuss where the opportunities lie and what is creating them, how innovation in climate technology can be approached given the different sectors involved and the global scope of this issue. He will draw on country case studies to discuss approaches that are taken to create the needed innovation and examines new directions to develop useful and appropriate innovations that are needed to overcome the challenges of climate change.

Historically, Schumpeterian developmental agencies at the periphery of the public sector have facilitated rapid restructuring by engaging in continuous, radical policy experimentation. During this presentation, Dr. Breznitz will argue that these development agencies are less likely to emerge in an increasing politicized environment. Endowing agencies with the authority and resources to administer cutting edge programs enables them to positively influence public and private sector routines, but reduces the likelihood that they develop transformative new initiatives. By contrast, reducing an agency’s profile and resources to the point where it has the flexibility to develop radically new ideas risks marginalizing it within national policy debates.

After briefly reviewing the history of the Finnish National Fund for Research and Development and the Israeli Office of the Chief Scientist, Dr. Breznitz will focus on the performance of three newly established innovation agencies, Singapore’s Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), the Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovative Systems (VINNOVA) and Ireland’s Policy Advisory Board for Enterprise and Science (Forfás).

Innovation policy is increasingly conceived as the shared responsibility of national and subnational governments, yet most countries are struggling with multilevel governance. During this presentation, José Guimón provides an overview of how different countries are dealing with regional innovation policy and of the institutions and tools used for national-regional coordination. Drawing on examples from Latin America, Eastern Europe and Asia, he will discuss policy implications for developing countries, which have decentralized their innovation policies more recently than developed countries, but face more acute challenges with respect to critical mass and institutional capacity.

Inclusive innovation leads to affordable access to quality goods and services for the poor on a sustainable basis and with extensive outreach. During this webinar the distinguished speaker, Dr. R.A. Mashelkar, will briefly examine the concept of inclusive innovation and will delve into the concerns, opportunities and aspiration associated with inclusive innovation. Drawing on his vast experiences in the process of creating and implementing inclusive innovation policies, he will elaborate on what public and private stakeholders can do to foster inclusive innovation.