On 18th February Prof Schot took part in the 1st Joint workshop on ‘Science Technology and Innovation policy for transformative change’, co-organised by:
Department of Science and Technology-Centre(s) for Policy Research, India
Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex, UK
About Science, Technology Innovation Policy, India:
As the world continues to tackle pandemic and persistent sustainability challenges, Science Technology and Innovation (STI) is increasingly recognised as key drivers for the much-needed change in society and economy. In the mid-2020, The Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India initiated a process of formulating India’s National Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy (STIP). After several months of public and expert consultation, the 5th National STI policy with its core principles being decentralized, evidence-informed, bottom-up, experts-driven and inclusive is now drafted and open for further feedback. Department of Science and Technology (DST) has built STI Policy cadre consisting of DST-STI-Policy fellows that are part of STIP Secretariat at DST. These fellows are simultaneously pursuing their research projects in STI Policy research domain.
About Transformative Innovation Policy:
SPRU has engaged with STI policy research for several decades. In the most recent years, a transdisciplinary project named Transformative Innovation Policy Consortium was launched. In this project, we advanced the notion of “Transformative innovation Policy” (TIP) as a new frame of innovation policy aimed at addressing the persistent sustainability challenges that the world is facing today. At the core of TIP theory, is the idea of transformations in socio-technical systems in an experimental and inclusive manner. The knowledge and competence of SPRU on societal transformations and innovation is however broader than the research project of TIPC and includes many interdisciplinary scholars whose work is dedicated to this critical area of research.
Given this overlap between the research and policy work across Indian institutes and SPRU, scholars from both countries organised a joint workshop to celebrate as well as critically examine the new STI policy for India through the research lenses of transformative change and transformative innovation policy.
The learning objectives of the workshop were as follows:
For SPRU:
1) Critically engage with the contents of a new national STI policy for India
2) Learn about the process of making of an STI policy at a national level
3) Understand the STI ecosystem of India for the past 70 years and the contextual nature of transformations from Indian colleagues
For colleagues in India:
1) Critically engage with the theoretical foundations of transformative innovation policy from a Global South perspective
2) Learn about policy experimentation work at the Consortium
3) Debate theories and examples of transformative change with SPRU colleagues
A combined longer-term objective is to create a STI Policy knowledge network and pursue collaborative research projects on this topic in the future.
See further information about the event via the Transformative Innovation Policy Consortium (TIPC) website.