Exploring the normative turn in regional innovation policy: responsibility and the quest for public value

Abstract

The perceived ineffectiveness of traditional innovation policies in solving societal challenges such as poverty, ageing, climate change as well as problems of regional economic restructuring has motivated a recent ‘normative turn’ in innovation policy. This has shifted the debate on the rationales for intervention from market and system failures to accommodate more transformative views but also other approaches rooted in the notion of public value and has led innovation scholars to question not just the how and how much of innovation but also key issues of directionality, legitimacy and responsibility. By engaging the processes through which actors ‘know, investigate and perform innovation’, we argue that the concept of responsible research and innovation (RRI) offers a potentially useful lens for re-casting our understanding of innovation-related decision making. We apply RRI to assessing the opportunities and challenges of public procurement as an instrument of challenge-oriented and transformative innovation policy. More specifically, we look at how local authorities in the UK are using the Social Value Act to define priorities and articulate demand around social, environmental and community needs as well as coordinate different processes and actors, policy levers and processes.