This thesis examines innovation structures and processes in rural poultry industry in Tanzania. In 2005, FAO categorised the rural poultry production system in Tanzania under the lowest sector IV with very minimal biosecurity measures and with no commercial orientation. By 2012, a DFID-funded Research into Use (RIU) programme transformed the industry to Sector III which represents a significant commercial orientation and relatively higher bio-security measures. This thesis explains how RIU achieved that. This analysis is presented from three perspectives. First, the path dependence framework is used to present the observed dominance of the traditional poultry production system as a 'lock-in'. The study makes it clear that before RIU, mental frames, resource allocations and how dominant powers behaved reinforced low innovation tendencies. Second, using the agricultural innovation system (AIS) framework and the concepts of 'organisational thinness' and 'fragmentation' (also from path dependency theory), it explains that by making rural producers feel self-sufficient in inputs and knowledge, practices in the traditional system disconnect producers from engaging with other actors. Third, the concepts of 'innovation broker' and of 'exogenous shock' are used to present RIU as an external force or facilitator which instigated a transformation process. RIU facilitated a large number of rural producers to produce for the market, and which was sufficient enough to create a significant demand for inputs and services. This demand triggered new investment and re-organisation in the supply chains. Then, RIU supported actors to solve capacity problems that emerged from the shock. RIU is therefore presented as a flexible 'innovation broker' who played different roles and allocated resources based on circumstances on the ground. The thesis makes several contributions. It presents a case of how a public action can promote innovation in industries dominated by subsistence producers by playing the role of an innovation broker to support a significant number of producers to change routines and interact with other actors. It also shows that rural growth can be achieved through linking rural enterprises with those in the urban instead of supporting rural actors in isolation. It basically makes it clear that African agriculture needs re-organization, so that technological changes can follow as a consequence.

Reforms to the national research and research training system by the Commonwealth Government of Australia sought to effectively connect research conducted in universities to Australia's national innovation system. Research training has a key role in ensuring an adequate supply of highly skilled people for the national innovation system. During their studies, research students produce and disseminate a massive amount of new knowledge. Prior to this study, there was no research that examined the contribution of research training to Australia's national innovation system despite the existence of policy initiatives aiming to enhance this contribution. Given Australia's below average (but improving) innovation performance compared to other OECD countries, the inclusion of Finland and the United States provided further insights into the key research question. This study examined three obvious ways that research training contributes to the national innovation systems in the three countries: the international mobility and migration of research students and graduates, knowledge production and distribution by research students, and the impact of research training as advanced human capital formation on economic growth. Findings have informed the concept of a research training culture of innovation that aims to enhance the contribution of research training to Australia's national innovation system. Key features include internationally competitive research and research training environments; research training programs that equip students with economically-relevant knowledge and the capabilities required by employers operating in knowledge-based economies; attractive research careers in different sectors; a national commitment to R&D as indicated by high levels of gross and business R&D expenditure; high private and social rates of return from research training; and the horizontal coordination of key organisations that create policy for, and/or invest in research training.

Over the past 30 years, there has been a marked proliferation of the use of public–private partnerships (P3s) for the management of agricultural innovation systems. This is part of a larger worldwide trend of using P3s in the provision of public goods and services. Despite the large number of agricultural P3s in operation, a literature review demonstrated paucity of both case studies and of theory, meaning that the study of these emerging business models has not kept pace with practice. Over the last 30 years, only 38 peer-reviewed articles have been published. The objective of this dissertation is to advance the theory, analysis, and policy review of agricultural P3s. There are four independent investigations in this dissertation that advance the knowledge of agricultural P3s in seven specific ways. First, these investigations introduce two quantitative methodologies to empirically demonstrate the critical role P3s occupy in research and development (R&D) innovation networks and in the development, dissemination and commercialization of new technologies that enhance global food security. Second, this analysis suggests that the key variable influencing the formation of these organizations is people, rather than public policy or market incentives. Third, agricultural P3s require large up-front investments and they have extended gestation periods; therefore, they are dependent upon public support. Fourth, P3s are not a means of privatizing public functions; rather, they represent a new and emerging process of collaboration that transcends the public–private dichotomy. Fifth, agricultural P3s appear to operate in “orphan spaces,” sectors that, for a variety of reasons, are ignored by the public and private sectors. Sixth, there is evidence to suggest that many P3s require the services of P3 experts of which there is a shortage, particularly in the developing world. Seventh, each agricultural P3 is novel because each is the result of sector-specific challenges and has a structure that is dependent upon the types and number of partners and their objectives, limiting the ability to transfer explicit lessons from existing models to new P3s.

The topic of regional innovation systems is one that has been covered extensively in prior research. It has influenced regional policy by providing context of how regional actors and firms interact and how they are affected by institutional guidance and formal structuring tools. An aspect that has not been covered to a sufficient extent is the prospect of self-sustaining or spontaneous collaborative efforts. This is an interesting area to consider because it questions the idea that regional innovation systems need institutional support to survive. Instead, it suggests that firms can collaborate simply through a mutual understanding of their situation and how an integration of their competences can prove beneficial to their system. The bottom line for well-functioning regional innovation systems are its ability to facilitate knowledge transfer for its actors. This raises the question of how firms’ knowledge transfer processes, its absorptive capacity is affected by regional innovation systems. The purpose of this study is to create a conceptual framework exploring how and why regional innovation systems facilitates firms’ absorptive capacity, as well as how they are affected by being either institutional or entrepreneurial. This has been done through an inductive multiple case study where 18 different cases of regional innovation systems were surveyed. The study resulted in a process model of how regional innovation systems evolve, its facilitating effect on firms’ absorptive capacity, and how entrepreneurial or institutional setups influence this evolution. Our findings suggest that regardless of being institutional or entrepreneurial, regional innovation systems follow a similar evolutionary process to facilitate firms’ absorptive capacity. It is rather suggested that each system has individually negative and positive effects on the process. Firms’ absorptive capacity is facilitated by regional innovation systems as they provide firms with an environment driving similar knowledge and problem sets, being a source of complementary knowledge and social integration mechanisms. The process model provides implications for regional policy makers to facilitate optimal conditions for actors in their regions, as well as for firms active in regional innovation systems.

As the innovation systems approach becomes increasingly transferred from developed to developing countries as a framework for achieving increased productivity, the notion of deficient institutions becomes more important. Prior research on innovation systems has adopted a broad treatment of institutions that has resulted in an omission of the impact that deficient institutions have on implementing innovation. Towards providing a treatment of institutions that is more specific and by extension, accounts for the impact of deficient institutions within developing country innovation systems, this thesis on the account of both the personcentric characteristic of the entrepreneur and the entrepreneur’s ability to deal with uncertainty focused on answering the research question: How do entrepreneurs deal with deficient institutions in developing country innovation systems in order to introduce innovation? By considering the context of the Nigerian film industry innovation system, this thesis showed that entrepreneurs dealt with the deficient institutions by substituting them with informal institutions during their interactions with Nigerian actors, and with formal institutions that looked to be external to the Nigerian environment when interacting with international actors. In addition to this, the decision to use these institutions was seen to have been influenced by both the situations that the entrepreneurs faced and their personal experiences personal experiences. By showing this, the thesis contributed to the literature on innovation systems by providing a more nuanced understanding of institutions in comparison with what previously existed. Another contribution was the introduction of agency (through analytical focus on the entrepreneur) within innovation systems research.

This thesis addresses conceptual and practical challenges in anticipating potential standardisation needs and developing relevant strategies throughout various stages of technological innovation. With increasing awareness of critical roles played by standardisation in supporting a variety of innovation activities, strategic foresight for timely and appropriate standardisation is becoming a crucial innovation policy interest in many countries. However, there are currently limited and fragmented studies on this issue, because of the complexity and variety involved in dynamic interplays between standardisation and other aspects of innovation. There are also increased challenges to develop coherent and long-term strategies for standardisation, due to modern technologies that are becoming more complex, interdisciplinary, and fast-evolving at the same time. Standards organisations and policymakers thus face significant challenges in developing standardisation strategies (in terms of what, why, when, how, and who) to support technological innovation more effectively. In this regard, the current research develops a systematic conceptual framework for more comprehensive understanding of standardisation – particularly highlighting its technological complexities – in the context of innovation, and a structured process model for using it to support strategic policy foresight. Building on the innovation systems perspective, preliminary framework and process model are first developed by adopting the holistic approach of strategic roadmapping as method, and incorporating a priori constructs drawn from existing literature relevant to standardisation. Then, multiple exploratory case studies covering various technology domains have been conducted to identify first order elements for their development. They are followed by an in-depth longitudinal case study on standardisation of photovoltaic technology, testing and refining the framework and process model by exploring complex dynamics between standardisation and innovation in greater detail. Interviews with experts across a broader range of domains and regions have then been carried out, to verify the framework and process model, including their utility and practicality. This thesis makes contributions to both theory and practice. With a systems perspective on standardisation, it provides a more holistic and comprehensive understanding of how standardisation supports innovation, highlighting its mediating roles between critical innovation activities and functions. It also presents a unified framework integrating various dimensions of standardisation with particular emphasis on technological elements, addressing challenges due to complex technological systems. Such new insights are expected to help standards organisations and policymakers with strategic foresight for standardisation in support of innovation, using the proposed framework and process model as practical tools for anticipating future standardisation needs and developing relevant strategies. In addition, the current research contributes to the roadmapping literature and practice, by presenting more structured and advanced frameworks and processes, and providing insights for using the roadmap-based approach as methods for data collection and analyses.

Este trabalho analisa os requisitos para o estabelecimento de um Sistema de Inovação Orientado para a Sustentabilidade com base na inovação biotecnológica e avalia as condições para aplicá-la no estado brasileiro do Rio Grande do Sul. A biotecnologia tem o potencial de fornecer soluções sustentáveis para alguns dos maiores desafios que a humanidade enfrentará nas próximas décadas, tais como a escassez de alimentos, acesso à energia de fontes renováveis, degradação ambiental, a saúde de uma população cada vez mais numerosa e o agravamento das mudanças climáticas. Em âmbito nacional e estadual, este trabalho apresenta a estrutura para promoção da inovação biotecnológica, incluindo aspectos como o ambiente legal e regulatório, a formação de recursos humanos, desenvolvimento de ciência e tecnologia, bem como os cenários e oportunidades de financiamento. Ao fazê-lo, permite avaliar as condições existentes que podem estimular ou dificultar o estabelecimento de um Sistema de Inovação Orientado para a Sustentabilidade (SIOS) e aponta gargalos a serem resolvidos com vistas à implantação de um SIOS efetivamente operacional. / This assay analyzes the requirements for the establishment of a Sustainability-oriented Innovation System, based on biotechnological innovation and assesses the conditions for applying it in the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul. Biotechnology has the potential to provide sustainable solutions to some of the greatest issues humanity will be facing in the coming decades, such as food shortages, environmental degradation, energy sources, population health, and climate-related changes. The assay presents the framework, at the level of country and state, to foster biotechnological innovation, such as legal and regulatory environment, training of human resources, science and technology scenarios, and funding opportunities. In doing so, this work evaluates the existing conditions that may stimulate or hinder the establishment of a Sustainability-oriented Innovation System (SoIS) and points to the bottlenecks which need to be addressed in order to establish an effective and operational SoIS.

Este trabalho analisa os requisitos para o estabelecimento de um Sistema de Inovação Orientado para a Sustentabilidade com base na inovação biotecnológica e avalia as condições para aplicá-la no estado brasileiro do Rio Grande do Sul. A biotecnologia tem o potencial de fornecer soluções sustentáveis para alguns dos maiores desafios que a humanidade enfrentará nas próximas décadas, tais como a escassez de alimentos, acesso à energia de fontes renováveis, degradação ambiental, a saúde de uma população cada vez mais numerosa e o agravamento das mudanças climáticas. Em âmbito nacional e estadual, este trabalho apresenta a estrutura para promoção da inovação biotecnológica, incluindo aspectos como o ambiente legal e regulatório, a formação de recursos humanos, desenvolvimento de ciência e tecnologia, bem como os cenários e oportunidades de financiamento. Ao fazê-lo, permite avaliar as condições existentes que podem estimular ou dificultar o estabelecimento de um Sistema de Inovação Orientado para a Sustentabilidade (SIOS) e aponta gargalos a serem resolvidos com vistas à implantação de um SIOS efetivamente operacional. / This assay analyzes the requirements for the establishment of a Sustainability-oriented Innovation System, based on biotechnological innovation and assesses the conditions for applying it in the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul. Biotechnology has the potential to provide sustainable solutions to some of the greatest issues humanity will be facing in the coming decades, such as food shortages, environmental degradation, energy sources, population health, and climate-related changes. The assay presents the framework, at the level of country and state, to foster biotechnological innovation, such as legal and regulatory environment, training of human resources, science and technology scenarios, and funding opportunities. In doing so, this work evaluates the existing conditions that may stimulate or hinder the establishment of a Sustainability-oriented Innovation System (SoIS) and points to the bottlenecks which need to be addressed in order to establish an effective and operational SoIS.

How new regional growth paths emerge and what policy concepts are most adequate for nurturing their evolution constitute recurring themes in regional innovation and development studies. New industrial paths are often portrayed as the result of market-driven processes and Schumpeterian entrepreneurial efforts. This view goes along with a neoliberal policy approach that restricts the role of public interventions to setting up a suitable regulatory frame and supporting an entrepreneurial climate. The theoretical underpinnings and policy perspectives of this approach have been challenged by the innovation system literature, which offers a systemic view on the rise of new growth paths and advocates a more proactive role of public policy. This paper investigates the role of policy models beyond these traditional ones. We contrast different variants of systemic and multi-scalar policy concepts for new regional industrial path development. Our literature-based study shows that more recent models go beyond new path development and growth per se, paying more attention to the direction of innovation and change, and to policy approaches for achieving more sustainable forms of development. We scrutinize the theoretical and empirical bases of these new policy models and discuss why they are superior to neoliberal and older systemic ones.

This thesis investigates the evolutionary foundation of the Innovation System concept and the quantitative techniques that could be used for a systemic evaluation of innovation policies. This topic has been covered through 6 chapters: / Chapter I: The innovation system concept, which is the central concept of this thesis, finds its foundations in the evolutionary theory of economics and the Schumpeterian point of view on the co-evolution of innovation, organizations and institutions. Developed by Nelson and Winter in 1982, this theory is based on the idea that the surviving firms on the markets are not necessarily the ones that maximize their profits. Indeed, their ability to survive is reinforced by the development of internal organizational routines allowing for a fast adaptation to their changing environment. Thus, when assessing performances in terms of innovation in general, the single firm should not by the only centre of attention anymore. The entire environment surrounding its innovation activities should by analysed to understand the conditions underlying its failure or success. The definition of the innovation system (IS) concept finds its roots in this theory: the environment in which innovation activities take place is as important as the decision of the single innovation actor. Defined as all the institutions and organizations involved in the creation and diffusion of new knowledge and technology, the IS includes not only stakeholders of the innovation process, but also all the transversal sectors affecting innovation near or far: labour market, finance, and education… In such a context, the main justification for public intervention shifted from the market failures described by the neo-classical theory, to systemic failures, i.e. the dysfunctions of the IS, on which governments may take actions. And this shift in the policy rationale also leads to specific evaluation techniques of public initiatives. / Chapter II: The IS concept is defined as all the institutions and organizations involved in the creation, diffusion and absorption of new knowledge and technology. An important question is raised by such a point of view: what is a system? What are its components? How does it foster innovation? This theoretical step is necessary to understand all the aspect of the innovation environment that are concerned by innovation policy design. How could a policy-maker integrate the systemic framework of the IS when initiating public action with the aim to improve performances in terms of science, technology and innovation? A large part of the economic literature is dedicated to the description of innovation systems. So the aim of this chapter consists of synthetizing the aspects referenced in the economic theory as the components of the IS in a normative exercise. First, the term “system” involves the articulation of several components and the relationships existing between them. Departing from this definition, three broad aspect of the IS are considered: the actors of the innovation process, the functions of the system and the resulting objectives that should be pursued by the stakeholders, and the instruments used by public authorities to intervene in such a systemic context. The actors involved in the innovation process are not only the recipient of a public policy, they are also policy makers, implementation agents and targets of the policy measures. The functions of the IS mainly concerns the creation, diffusion and absorption of new knowledge and technology. As the role of the State is to improve the performances of such a system, those functions should be considered as the objectives of public action. Finally, the instruments used by the State to reach these goals can also be detailed: innovation policies can be implemented through direct support measures (financial or fiscal tools), the improvement of the infrastructure allowing for the diffusion of innovation, or the general framework conditions affecting performances. The normative exercise ended up with an exhaustive taxonomy that may be used for further analysis / Chapter III: As the aim of this thesis is to develop analytical tools to integrate the IS point of view in public policy evaluation, the most important aspect of the work consisted in building an exhaustive database on innovation policies implemented in the EU28 Member States and its main non-EU competitors (Australia, China, Japan, the US, India, the Russian Federation, Brazil, South Korea and Canada). This database was constructed in the context of the ENIRI study conducted by the European Commission, between 2013 and 2015. This long-lasting work involved the collection of information concerning the innovation policy measures implemented in all the considered countries, both at the national and regional levels. This information was related to the IS dimensions highlighted in previous chapter. The main sources for data collection were the RIO (former Erawatch) and OECD STIP databases, the RIM Plus Monitor and national sources (Ministry websites), as well as national experts. The budgets was also included or estimated for the 2007-2013 period. Once the data were collected, the policy measures were classified according to the theoretical canvas developed through the taxonomy of chapter II. Functional matrices combining different aspects of the IS allowed for detailed information on the distribution of policy measures among the different dimensions of the system. For example, it is possible to estimate the percentage of policy measures implemented in one country that are dedicated to the fundamental research activities in SMEs. This distribution has been computed both in absolute and budget terms. This difference provided information on the contrast existing between governmental claims and intentions in terms of innovation policies and the effective use of money dedicated to the announced target. Indeed, it is not because a substantial number of policies are dedicated to a specific sector of beneficiary that the allocated budget will be more important. Thus, this policy database should shed a light on the way innovation policies are articulated at a national level, and how they are effectively implemented through their budgets / Chapter IV: The evolutionary foundations of the IS concept imply that there is no general equilibrium describing an ideal situation to which a specific case can be compared. In other words, there is no optimal innovation system, and no ideal configuration that should be imitated by the others. This absence of equilibrium and the systemic point of view adopted in this context lead to the use of alternative techniques to evaluate performances and policies. As suggested by Edquist (2006), this has to be done through a diagnosis of the IS, consisting in the identification of the systemic failures, and the elaboration of strategy to fix the problem. This demarche will be investigated in this chapter of the thesis and the following. In this section, a diagnosis of the IS of 37 countries (28 EU and their 9 non-EU competitors) will be realized through a typology based on innovation performances indicators. The aim of such an analysis is to see whether the different IS can be gathered in groups sharing the same characteristics, relative strengths and weaknesses. The expected results should reveal groups of countries sharing the same configurations in terms of innovation process, and facing the same type of weaknesses, dysfunctions or systemic failures. By doing so, one should be able to identify the needs of each IS, i.e. the components that may need improvement and eventually public intervention. To do so, a principal component analysis and a hierarchical ascendant clustering technique have been implemented on the 37 IS, revealing 4 clusters of countries, depending on their NIS characteristics and advancement: 1) The Asian economies, 2) The lagging-behind and catching-up NIS, 3) The small opened systems, 4) The technological leaders. This analysis has been realized for the 2003-2005 and 2013-2015 periods, revealing that, if the general features of the clusters do not tend to change over time, some countries faced a change a modification of their status: Korea left the Asian group to join the leaders, Cyprus and Ireland opened their boarders to a larger extent in a decade. / Chapter V: Innovation policy typologyThis chapter is focused on the construction of an innovation policy typology based on the distributions of policies obtained in the database presented in chapter III. The results of this typology will be compared with the diagnosis realized in previous section to see if the weaknesses and needs of the NIS are effectively targeted by public action in innovation. Also, the aspects that could enhance or weaken such action, and their combination with other component of the NIS could be better understood. To this purpose, a multiple factor analysis has been implemented on the distributions of policy measures in terms of NIS components, followed by a hierarchical ascendant clustering, revealing groups of countries sharing the same characteristics in terms of policy design and implementation. 34 NIS have been examined (India, Brazil and Russia have been removed from the sample due to the bad quality of the information), using both the budget-weighted and non-budget-weighted distributions of measures on the 2007-2013 period. However, the results of this typology cannot be interpreted separately from the general innovation framework in which the public action is implemented. Indeed, countries having the same features in terms of beneficiaries and/or objectives in terms of policy do not necessarily share the same kind of IS. These implementation characteristics should rather be interpreted in light of the results obtained in the NIS diagnosis typology, in order to examiner if the public money effectively go where it is needed. In general, the different examined countries seem to effectively tackle their weaknesses, but countries facing the same types of problems do not implement the same type of policy mix, reinforcing the hypothesis that the innovation process is embedded in a large institutional framework that my orient public action in a direction rather than another. Two specific cases hold the attention in those results: South Korea, whose leader status came along with an improvement of the in force regulatory framework and a focus on private research, and Japan, dealing with research in the pharmaceutical research and ageing-population issues. / Chapter VI: The impact of macroeconomic and IS factors on the efficiency of public R&DAnother point of view can be adopted in an attempt to integrate the IS representations in policy evaluation techniques: the analysis of their impact on the efficiency of public R&D in leveraging private investments. In this chapter, a combination of two types of analysis is used to examine the problematic: the study of the efficiency of public R&D expenditure and its determinants on one hand, and the investigation of a possible crowding out effect of public R&D on the private one on another hand. The crowding out effect is translated into efficiency analysis, considering the BERD funded by government as an input, and the BERD funded by business as an output. And if an increase in the output leads to a decrease in the output, public intervention is considered to crowd out private initiative, as the firm may decide to replace its own investment with public money, instead of using it as an extra resource to increase its R&D activities. In this context, the IS as environment of R&D activities can be seen as a determinant of this efficiency, as it can strengthen or weaken this crowding out effect. The question asked in this section is the following: how to quantify and model the interdependencies existing between the different components of a NIS in order to integrate them in a quantitative analysis. This has been done in this study by implementing factorial analysis (Buesa, 2010) on a set of indicators collected in the Global Competitiveness Index database, and considered as descriptors of the different aspects of the innovation system. Those IS factors are: 1) the general STI environment, 2) the accessibility of the financial markets, 3) the internationalization of the system, 4) barriers to entrepreneurship and 5) the flexibility of labour regulation. Afterwards, these variables have been added as efficiency determinants in a stochastic frontier model assessing a possible crowding out effect between public and private initiatives. The main results showed that there is an additional effect of public R&d expenditure on private R&D investments (no crowding out). Moreover, the general STI environment and accessibility of financial markets have a positive impact on this efficiency, contrary to the presence of foreign stakeholders in the system. The two last factors remain insignificant. Those results suggest that, if public intervention should have an effect on the performances of the NIS, this relationship is also reciprocal: a well-functioning NIS may have a positive effect on the results of a policy measure. / Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished