The capacities of public actors intransformative innovation
Prof. Susana Borrás
Copenhagen Business SchoolDenmark

Changing Science, Technology and Innovation Policy Ecosystem and Human Resources Development
Webinar organized by SCIREX center
Tokyio, Japan
5th February 2021
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Setting the scene• Current debate about the purpose of science, technology and innovation
policy => three complementary goals:

1. For advancing human knowledge frontier (human curiosity)
2. For improving industrial competitiveness (economy)
3. For solving grand challenges (f.ex. Mitigating climate change, ageing
societies, etc)2

Science, technology and innovation policy for solving
grand challenges• What are grand challenges?
• Complex, non-market, problems• Long-term, require different technologies & changing behavior• Putting STI policy to solve grand challenges….is not easy:• Is about defining specific missions – setting clear goals• Is about the transformation of existing socio-technical systems.
• This requires the interaction of many different actors (public, private, society)3

The role of public actors is key• The role of public actors is very important:• Define the goals of those missions, and• Create incentives and create contexts allowing new technologies and actively
engaging in transforming existing systems.
• Not only about new technologies, but about transforming socio-technicalsystems and breaking technological path dependencies.

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”CAPACITOR”
is a new research project at Copenhagen
Business School5• Public actors (municipalities, national agencies, public utilities) aretaking the lead in the governance of green transitions.
• However, the governance of green transitions is complex(coordinating many stakeholders, creating market and institutional
contexts for investments, adapting standards and safety regulations,etc.).
• Public actors need organizational capacities:• What capacities? How are those capacities developed & used?
6Research Questions:
RQ1: How are public actors developing and using their organizational
capacities in the complex governance processes of green transitions?
RQ2: What specific combinations of public actors’ capacities are required forachieving green transitions?

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8• We will compare 24 in depth cases in:• Renewable energy sector, and• Sustainable maritime transport sector• We will collect data from 250+ interviews, 24 observations, and450+ documents.
• The findings will help developing a theory on public actor’scapacities for green transitions, and identifying deficiencies incurrent capacities.
9Our hypothesis
H1: Combinations of public actors’ capacities vary acrosssectors.
• Our previous studies show important cross-sectoral differences in sociotechnical systems (Borrás and Edler, 2014).
• The renewable energy sector isbased on national-level initiatives, and isspatially geographically located, as depends on specific energy sources(i.e. wind, but no waterfalls in DK).
• The maritime sector is highly global, operating on footloose, mobile assets(the ships). In energy, the problem for green transitions is integrating andstoring renewable energy systems in specific geographical contexts10H2: Combinations of public actors’ capacities vary acrosslevels of deployment complexity.
• Our 24 cases (see Table 1) show variation in terms of multi-level and crossborder deployment complexity.
• Cross-border and multi-level governance refers to “decision‐makingprocesses that involve the simultaneous mobilization of public authorities atdifferent jurisdictional levels as well as private actors and non‐governmentalorganizations” (Piattoni, 2010).
• We expect that, the higher the deployment complexity in the case, thestronger and wider public actor’s capacities are required for successful green
transition.
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An example(watch video)
The VIDEO IS ELIMINATED DUE TO THE VOLUME

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VIDEO ELIMINATED DUE TO VOLUME

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Thank you!
Professor Susana Borrás
Sbo.ioa@cbs.dk

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