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The Swedish National Innovation Council: Innovation policy governance to replace linearity with holism

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The Swedish National Innovation Council (NIC) was created by the Prime Minister (Stefan Löfven) in February 2015, and it has now been operating for 18 months. It is personally chaired by the Prime Minister, which is unusual for such councils in other countries. Another atypical characteristic of the Swedish NIC is its dominant and wide focus on innovation rather than on research (for which there is another council in Sweden). The existence of NIC has given innovation policy issues a much higher status and degree of importance both within the government itself and within government agencies, i.e. in the entire state apparatus. NIC has become a major governance instrument in order to transform Swedish innovation policy from being linear towards becoming holistic. The continued separation between innovation policy and research policy is also very important if the linear view shall lose its dominance in the field of innovation policy. The Swedish NIC will be described and analyzed in this paper and its operation will be exemplified by four types of NIC activity. I will show that two of these activities have already been directly successful in influencing innovation policy in practice (state risk capital provision and innovation-related public procurement) and that an interesting development has been taking place in the other two (holistic innovation policy and additionality). These examples will be placed within a framework of the relevant innovation theory and of the development of innovation policy in a larger context.

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  • Edquist, Charles, 2016. "The Swedish National Innovation Council: Innovation policy governance to replace linearity with holism," Papers in Innovation Studies 2016/24, Lund University, CIRCLE - Centre for Innovation Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:lucirc:2016_024
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    1. Edquist, Charles, 2014. "Efficiency of Research and Innovation Systems for Economic Growth and Employment," Papers in Innovation Studies 2014/8, Lund University, CIRCLE - Centre for Innovation Research.
    2. Edquist , Charles, 2015. "Innovation-related Public Procurement as a Demand-oriented Innovation Policy Instrument," Papers in Innovation Studies 2015/28, Lund University, CIRCLE - Centre for Innovation Research.
    3. Asheim, Bjorn T & Isaksen, Arne, 2002. "Regional Innovation Systems: The Integration of Local 'Sticky' and Global 'Ubiquitous' Knowledge," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 27(1), pages 77-86, January.
    4. Cooke, Philip & Gomez Uranga, Mikel & Etxebarria, Goio, 1997. "Regional innovation systems: Institutional and organisational dimensions," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 26(4-5), pages 475-491, December.
    5. Borrás, Susana & Edquist, Charles, 2013. "The choice of innovation policy instruments," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 80(8), pages 1513-1522.
    6. Edquist, Charles & Zabala-Iturriagagoitia, Jon Mikel, 2012. "Public Procurement for Innovation as mission-oriented innovation policy," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(10), pages 1757-1769.
    7. Bergek, Anna & Jacobsson, Staffan & Carlsson, Bo & Lindmark, Sven & Rickne, Annika, 2008. "Analyzing the functional dynamics of technological innovation systems: A scheme of analysis," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 407-429, April.
    8. Cooke, Philip, 2001. "Regional Innovation Systems, Clusters, and the Knowledge Economy," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 10(4), pages 945-974, December.
    9. Charles Edquist, 2011. "Design of innovation policy through diagnostic analysis: identification of systemic problems (or failures)," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 20(6), pages 1725-1753, December.
    10. ., 2014. "Introduction to Part III," Chapters, in: Common Innovation, chapter 15, pages 133-134, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    11. Borrás , Susana & Edquist , Charles, 2014. "Innovation Policy for Knowledge Production and R&D: the Investment Portfolio Approach," Papers in Innovation Studies 2014/21, Lund University, CIRCLE - Centre for Innovation Research.
    12. Edquist, Charles, 2011. "Innovation Policy Design: Identification of Systemic Problems," Papers in Innovation Studies 2011/6, Lund University, CIRCLE - Centre for Innovation Research.
    13. ., 2014. "Introduction: status, superstars and markets," Chapters, in: The Political Economy of Status, chapter 1, pages 1-13, Edward Elgar Publishing.
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    Cited by:

    1. Nasierowski Wojciech, 2019. "Reflections on Discussions About Technical Efficiency of Innovativeness of Countries," Foundations of Management, Sciendo, vol. 11(1), pages 165-176, January.
    2. Edquist, Charles, 2018. "Towards a Holistic Innovation Policy: Can the Swedish National Innovation Council Serve as a Role Model?," Papers in Innovation Studies 2018/2, Lund University, CIRCLE - Centre for Innovation Research.
    3. Proksch, Dorian & Busch-Casler, Julia & Haberstroh, Marcus Max & Pinkwart, Andreas, 2019. "National health innovation systems: Clustering the OECD countries by innovative output in healthcare using a multi indicator approach," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 169-179.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Innovation; Innovation Policy; Holistic innovation policy; Research policy; Linear view; Systems of innovation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O30 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - General
    • O38 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Government Policy
    • O49 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Other
    • O52 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Europe

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