From crisis to growth

"In principle, innovation is characterised by a process of ‘creative destruction’ renewing society’s dynamics" and hence leading to "higher levels of economic development and welfare to the benefit of many". But it can also present the "opposite pattern: a process of ‘destructive creation’, to the benefit of a few", cautions Luc Soete, director of Unumerit – Institute of joint research of Maastricht University (of which he is the Dean) and the United Nations University – , in the address delivered on February 28 in Brussels at the international conference "The Science of Innovation" organized by the European science foundation (ESF, which represents research institutes and academies of thirty European countries) and of the Science and technology options assessment (STOA, official body of the European parliament which hosted the meeting).From "creative destruction" to "destructive creation". For Soete, in the case of "destructive creation" new "products and services diminish or destroy the usage value of existing ones" before it is optimal to do so, whilst in addition "incurring environmental and health costs (e.g. environmental, health) that are not taken into account". "Unsustainable fossil-fuel based economic growth" and so-called "financial innovation" are "blatant examples" of the "limits of innovation" when "the forms of ‘destructive creation’ prevail on ‘creative destruction’". In the belief that economists "seems to have not been sufficiently forthcoming in highlighting the limits of innovation", which "policymakers may not be sufficiently aware of", Soete underlines the need for an "in-depth reflection" on innovation", the "core of European policy". "The real importance of universities in the innovation system is not the direct commercialisation of research-derived knowledge, but rather a range of highly influential indirect effect", said Alan Hughes (Cambridge University), underlining that "the state is the key to innovation" as "the business sector consistently relies on the state to trigger major technological improvements". For Hughes, "Innovation policy has to beware of myths and rituals"; and needs to be "highly context-specific (national, regional); and this presents a big challenge for those who want to develop European level innovation policy". Equal, inclusive, sustainable growth. "Rather than innovation policymakers being passive consumers of scientific knowledge, they often commission and even cooperate with scientists to produce knowledge for innovation policy", pointed out Merle Jacob (Lund University – Sweden). "The policy process however possesses its own cognitive frames" whereby knowledge is increasingly framed in a fashion that allows it to be easily integrated". The increased proximity "between innovation policy and innovation research may therefore have the effect of inhibiting the creation of new knowledge that could change the direction of policy"; especially if "research funding mechanisms are too tightly coupled to preconceived notions of what is relevant". Mariana Mazzucato (University of Sussex) maintains: "The current financial crisis has dramatically exposed flaws in the conventional economic analysis of these processes and the policies and regulations that support and control them"; it is therefore necessary to disprove "certain myths about the role of the financial system". Now, she concludes, "the challenge is to find ways of reforming the financial system to help move the economy out of the current crisis and into a period of more creative, sustained and sustainable innovation-led, inclusive, equitable growth". Two questions. "Science and innovation policies aim at mobilising knowledge in support of a wide range of societal aspirations and values", said Barry Bozeman (University of Georgia). However, analytical tools and models for the assessment of science and innovation policies "focus predominantly on economic values (e.g. benefit-cost analysis)", while "values not easily expressed in economic terms receive less attention, simply owing to the absence of compelling and concrete ways of thinking about them". For Bozeman, the justification of public intervention to boost the innovative process derives especially from "market failures in the creation and diffusion of innovation, the so-called ‘market failure paradigm’". Hence the importance of ‘Public Value Mapping’, i.e. ‘public value’ understood as a means to provide theoretical and methodological foundations to value innovative, government-funded research projects" also in terms of "social equality and human resources". According to Bozeman, two main questions should be raised: "What are the public values that justify particular science and innovation policies, and what is the capacity of a given science and innovation policy to yield outcomes that support and advance those values?".