230153 VO Politics of Innovation and its Institutional Dimensions: Central Issues, Questions and Concepts (2018S)

Talk of ‘innovation’ has proliferated in the past decades: it is core to political programmes and economic growth strategies (such as Europe 2020) as well as marketing strategies of firms and tactics of social movements. While today we have gotten used to thinking of innovation as core to societal development, this is by far self-evident in historical perspective. Back in the 17th century, innovation had the meaning of political change, reform and revolution and was used in rather pejorative ways: thus, the then only developing scientific profession was eager to write in line with Restauration values and ‘novelty’ in general was suspect (Godin 2014). This understanding is quite contrary to today’s understanding of innovation as central to wealth, wellbeing and (sometimes even) survival. This lecture discusses the institutional framework conditions (e.g. for funding, measuring or owning innovation) that societies have created to stabilise this view. Amongst others, we discuss different attempts to steer innovation to serve societal needs better (e.g. the European framework programme Horizon 2020). Taking into account the broader societal context, we will also discuss how the dominant understanding of innovation as technological innovation for the market developed and stabilised during the 20th century, e.g. by institutionalising science and innovation statistics and ‘innovation studies’. We further discuss, how alternative concepts of innovation gain (political) legitimacy; e.g. ‘frugal innovation’ that claims to ‘contrast(s) sharply with the conventional approach’ (Planning Commission 2013), or ‘social innovation’ that partly reclaims a meaning of social change or revolution.
The aim of the course is to learn to understand notions of innovation as co-produced by specific societal (institutional, political, economic, cultural, etc.) framework conditions. To do so, it explores how different meanings of innovation have developed historically and traces how we have learned to think of societal development in terms of ‘innovation’. The lecture (VO) does so via talks by the lecturer, but also by interactive discussions, brainstorming, or reflections on contemporary representations (e.g. videos) of innovation policies. The discussion class (KO) takes up and reflects the topics of the lecture. It does so along readings of scientific texts, field-trips (regarding concrete practical examples), and teamwork-based debate.