Evolutionary Approach to Science and Innovation Policies

University of Strasbourg, France

General Description

Science and innovation policies are increasingly justified in economic terms: science turning into innovation would be a source of growth and employment. These arguments dominate both political and media discourse. However, these discourses are explicitly or implicitly based on a ‘Novlangue’ (‘Newspeak’, Fitoussi, 2020), impoverishing the language, the concepts and consequently the ways of thinking and designing these policies. This course proposes to develop critical analyses of these economic arguments by proposing at least one alternative socio-economic approach: the evolutionary and institutional approach. The course will cover all of these aspects, from design to the measurement of their impacts. Applying students should have some prior knowledge in economics.

Elective Structure

General introduction: the role of the state seen by “economists”.

• 1. Characteristics of scientific and innovation processes — 1.1 Knowledge as a public good; 1.2 Innovation processes as interactive and collective processes.
• 2. Two spheres: the republic of science and the dictatorship of markets — 2.1 The “republic of science” and the market; 2.2 What and how to transfer, or how to organize the interfaces.
• 3. The institutional and evolutionary approach to science and innovation policies — 3.1 Analysis in terms of National Systems of Innovation; 3.2 Institutional specificities and nature of the innovation policies.
• 4. Methods and measures of socio-economic impacts of policies — 4.1 Basics in economic impact assessments; 4.2 Socio-economic measures of research and policy impacts.