TIPC Workshop Leads Next Generation of Thinking on STI Policy
The second Transformative Innovation Policy Consortium (TIPC) members’ workshop takes place this month in Bogota hosted by founding member, Colciencias – the agency responsible for Science, Technology and Innovation Policy in Colombia.
The June workshop concentrates on each members recently conducted Transformative Innovation Learning History (TILH). These encompassed a range of projects from programmes in Responsible Research & Innovation to rural education and inclusive, bottom-up innovation in Colombia’s coffee industry. Examination and learnings from the TILHs will be shared by the group to produce new ideas and directions for transformative STI policy.
With TIPC half-way through its exploratory year, the vision for the next generation of thinking on innovation policy is slowly starting to crystallise. This coproduction of research questions is the first step towards the coproduction of TIP knowledge between civil society, policymakers, international orgnisations and academics. This is the stand out opportunity for TIPC and its members.
Johan Schot, founder of TIPC and Director of Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU) said:
“The long-term vision of TIPC is to lead experimentation in Science, Technology and Innovation policy for transformation. Accompanied by rigorous comparative empirical research, we aim to build a constituency behind transformative policies through training, skills development, evaluation and public outreach. We are looking to generate new frameworks, standards and narratives which allow for positive upscaling.The vision is to explore novel ways of mutual policy learning and co-creation of knowledge between research and policy.”
Establishing the seeds of the research agenda for analysis, experimentation, implementation and evaluation is the primary impact of TIPC’s pilot year. Comparative case-studies from TIPC’s inception phase on elements of Transformative Innovation Policy within each founding members’ country context, informs Schot’s latest collaborative working paper on TIP – Enacting Transformative Innovation Policy (TIP): A Comparative Study (Chataway, Daniels, Kanger, Ramirez, Schot, Steinmueller).
The fresh thinking and narrative on innovation policy provided by the Frame 3 lens, is slowly starting to inform and influence next-generation approaches to policy construction across a number of other governments and international organisations. There is receptiveness to this alternative framing, demonstrated at the regional workshops held in Latin America, and recently Africa, for a further cohort of countries interested in TIPC’s vision and direction.
In our transitioning world, TIPC’s alternative viewpoint and the possibilities for meeting both national and international aims, such as the Sustainable Development Goals, have begun to gain traction and momentum.
TIPC’s exploratory year culminates in South Africa with members and other interested participants attending the inaugural 2017 conference – Prospects for Transformative Innovation Policy.
Follow Johan on Twitter – @Johan_Schot and for the Consortium’s news – @TIPConsortium