White Spaces Innovation in Sweden - Innovation policy for ... - Vinnova

WHITE SPACES INNOVATION IN SWEDENthis micro-macro relationship is of practical importance since it determines the role ofintentionality and governance in a complex social system.In practical innovation policy terms this can be exemplified by analyses being donein relation to Strategic Niche Management and Multi Level Governance. In that Dutchschool of research on transition (e.g. from a hydrocarbons to a post-hydrocarbons sociotechnical„landscape‟) a distinction is being made between landscapes, regimes andniches in a nested system of self-organisation that is constrained and/or enabled betweenlevels (MLP – multi-level perspective). History/time constrains the development ofregimes via path-dependencies being reflected in a dominant logic (that acts as an „attractor‟between them). Slowly changing cultural patterns, regulation and institutionalconditions enable/constrain change of regimes and the way niches are developed. Andover time changed practice affects institutions and culture and changes the landscape.An example is the way shipyards now house creative industry and its incubators. This isbecause the requirements of the former – waterfronts, grand office spaces – act as(„strange‟) attractors to the design-driven „urban pioneer‟ and „creative edge‟ ethic ofthe creative „socio-cultural regime‟. Independent path dependencies have become pathinterdependencies. Rents are also low and subsidies available, which helps „protect theniche‟.However it is important to note that hierarchy does not have same connotation oftop-down control in complexity analysis as in everyday language. Neologisms likeheterarchy and panarchy (Gunderson & Holling, 2002) have been suggested instead ofhierarchy to allow inter-level causal relations to flow in both directions, part to whole(bottom-up) and whole to part (top-down). By delimiting the parts´ initial repertoire ofbehaviour, the structured whole in which the elements are suddenly embedded alsoredefines them. They are now something they were not before, nodes in a network,components of a system. This may mean that they might be restricted compared to beingindependent. The evolutionary advantage is that the system can reach states that theindependent parts cannot. This is the point when the term co-specialisation is used inrelation to dynamic capabilities of clusters and business ecosystems.EvolutionThinking about complexity has evolved from the study of natural systems or biologicalsystems to social systems. Along this path it has picked up influences from systemsthinking by reference to Ashby. In a similar way evolutionary thinking has been influentialin framing the issue of the survival and development of systems as a question ofevolutionary fitness between the system and its environment. This means that definingthe boundary between a system and its environment is very important unless the systemis truly universally defined both for analytical purposes and for systemic intervention.The analysis of fitness is seen as an optimization problem and the solution to this problemis dependent on the topology of a fitness landscape. Fitness landscapes are oftenconceived of as ranges of mountains. There exist local peaks (points from which all28