Towards a Mission-oriented Innovation Systems (MIS) approach, application for Dutch sustainable maritime shipping

This paper builds on the literature on mission-oriented innovation policy, governance, transition studies and innovation systems, and develops a structural-functional approach to formatively evaluate mission governance from a Mission-oriented Innovation Systems (MIS) perspective. Central to this MIS approach is the mission arena, a governance structure where actors formulate and govern the mission, by mobilizing and directing other, preexisting system components. Their goal is to meet the mission by developing and diffusing innovative mission solutions and destabilizing harmful practices. The MIS approach involves a problem-solutions diagnosis and an analysis of structural, functional, and systemic barriers. To provide formative mission governance recommendations, the systemic barriers are then contrasted with the mission arena’s governance tasks. To illustrate the value of the MIS approach, we use a case study of the Dutch mission for sustainable maritime shipping. This case study illustrates a mission arena striving to increase coherence amongst different innovation system structures in semblance of a MIS. The mission arena configuration of actors shaped the mission formulation and negotiated governance actions. Dominant industry networks negotiated green growth as problem direction and non-committal governance actions, which are likely ineffective for inherently transformative sustainability missions. The paper concludes by identifying directions for further developing the MIS approach and the mission arena concept.Author summary: Missions like ‘a net-zero greenhouse gas emissions economy by 2050’ are used increasingly to tackle societal challenges like climate change. However, no analytical frameworks currently exist that can adequately evaluate the impacts of such challenge-led missions. We therefore introduce the Mission-oriented Innovation Systems (MIS) approach, which captures all social, technological, and other factors that affect the success of developing and spreading the use of mission solutions. Mission solutions include innovations, like electric drivetrains, but also changing or phasing-out harmful practices, like growing consumption. Central to our MIS approach is the mission arena, where different stakeholders negotiate the rate and direction of mission-oriented societal change and mobilize external stakeholder support. We study how the arena’s actions impact systemic barriers to mission success. We apply our MIS approach to the Dutch mission for sustainable maritime shipping. We find that its mission arena targets many systemic barriers, like missing business models and lacking direction in selecting between mission solutions, but that complementary actions are necessary. Notably, mission arenas should watch out for capture by vested industry interests, that may lobby for a green growth paradigm and for non-committal mission-supportive actions, neither of which are likely to meet the inherently transformative, sustainability missions.