Innovation Cultures: Challenge and Learning Strategy (eds. Jiří Loudín, Klaus Schuch). Praha: Filosofia 2009.

Introduction

A rising amount of innovation-related literature truthfully reflects an increasing relevance of innovation activities for contemporary society. Innovations not only determine dynamics of economy and direction of technological development, they also intervene in a substantial way into societal life, our way of living, and everyday life of people. Innovation means by definition making novelty, yet nowadays, innovations, such as conservation of natural and cultural heritage, also enable preservation of the past to a large extent. Thanks to innovative information and communication technologies, knowledge about our history and cultural diversity is widely accessible; we learn more and more not only about nature and the world around us, but also about ourselves. Innovation does not necessarily carry in itself one-sidedness and destruction as its cultural critics sometimes assert. Innovation enables self-renewal of culture and society. It is also an agent of tradition and continuity. Innovation is culturally – not only economically – justified and it is a major agent in the current processes of civilization and culture.

Behind the strengthening and diversifying effects of innovations lies, of course, a strengthening and diversifying range and structure of innovation practices themselves. New actors and contexts appear and the relative weights and interactions of the respective agents change. A reconfiguration of the whole process takes place. Technology remains the most dynamic dimension of innovation process, but technological progress is nurtured by an enlarging range of resources and drivers. 

Precisely the agents and drivers standing behind the dynamics of technology and the whole innovation process have recently become the priority for innovation research. In the focus of our attention are both the institutional and the value factors, i.e, non-economic factors that may be generally described as cultural factors that shape perception, cognition, and action. The notion of innovation culture emphasises perceptual and action-oriented elements that structure innovation processes, for example through formalised and non-formalised institutions.

Such a broad approach – understanding innovation activities as rooted in and impacting civilisational changes, which draw on variety of resources and take effect in a variety of specific contexts – is a common ground for the innovation research conducted at the Centre for Social Innovation in Vienna as well as at the Centre for Science, Technology, and Society Studies at the Institute of Philosophy, (Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic) in Prague. This book is a product of co-operation of the above mentioned research institutions. The contributions included in this book were presented at the conference “Innovation cultures: challenge and learning strategy” in Prague in June 2005.  

A distinct focus of this book is a cultural dimension of innovation and its interaction with other elements of innovation activities. Culture is ubiquitous; even the most specialized scientific and technological processes and artefacts occur in specific cultural context and bear cultural footprint, not to speak of human values, norms, and such deliberate activities as policies and strategies. A great variety of phenomena may be subsumed under the term “culture” – meanings, institutions, practices, artefacts in general; a diversity of notions of culture is presented in this book.  The cultural dimensions may be latent or functional as tacit prerequisites of innovations.

Innovation culture, the key concept of this book, may be understood in general as a distinct set of institutions and practices linked to innovation processes that are embedded in value and normative systems influencing innovation activities. It is an open concept closely connected to activities of special actors, and thus subjected to change in time and space. This issue is discussed in some detail in the opening article by Josef Hochgerner and, following his study, it is further specified in this book.

All kinds of the innovation actors are affiliated to a set of cultural values – whether they are aware of it or not. These actors may be research organizations, universities, companies, individuals, and even countries or supra-national entities that claim to share a common set of values and attitudes. The regional, national, or supra-national entities very often used common history and tradition as the grounds for a shared culture.

Of special interest in a given context are the cultural assets that play their role in innovation activities in the transitional societies of the Central and Eastern European Countries (CEEC), how they are often called. The cultural system of CEEC is “under reconstruction”, a transitional process accompanied by manifold institutional innovations that reflect the changes of the entire socio-cultural system. Nevertheless, these transitional countries still have a relatively low innovation performance in terms of regular innovation indicators as defined, for instance, by the Oslo Manual. This, of course, represents a big problem since the transition of the CEEC follows the rules of game of the market economy within the regulatory context of the EU. However, on the other hand, such a state of affairs may also be interpreted as an opportunity for determining an appropriate innovation strategy for the future.

CEEC are not the only countries that have to face the challenge of shedding their innovation deficiencies. It would be unjustified to talk about a distinct “Central European innovation culture”. However, it is an undeniable fact that some sort of shared practices – rooted in the long shared history – are traceable at least in the areas of education and research and, to some extent, in the field of governance. The ´Central-European´ model of education and research is generally found to be too academic and exclusive while the practical orientation (´context of application´) and skill learning is largely neglected. The required integration of science culture and business culture may be a very controversial process that opens, on the other hand, a great learning potential for technological and economic progress.

In the whole of Europe a need is felt to make “European” innovation culture more dynamic (Europe is seen as too rigid, unflexible, stagnant) and to link it more tightly to the users and the market in order to overcome the existing gaps. Such efforts were politically conceptualized in the “Lisbon strategy”.

The book is intended to be a modest piece of analytical work in tackling the problem. The published contributions certainly do not exhaust the topics in their entirety; our ambitions was rather to offer an inspiring and original intellectual food for thought.    

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In the first part of the book, entitled Innovation Culture – Concepts and  Contexts, the very concept of innovation culture is discussed and exemplified in various specific contexts.

Josef Hochgerner analyzes relationships between innovations and socio-economic development as well as between technological and other types of innovations. He pays attention to the diference between the notions of ´culture of innovation´ and that of ´innovation culture´ and discusses the role of culture in innovation processes. Hochgerner advocates a holistic concept of innovation that comprises a broad range of social, technological, and economic changes.  Karel Müller focuses on institutional dimensions of culture in relationship to innovations. He identifies the factors of cultural closure and openness that are crucial for innovations. He also constructs two different types of culture regarding their impact on the infrastructure for the support of innovation.  Harald Rohracher understands transition to sustainability as a cultural process that entails new social practices, institutions, meanings and values. He concentrates on the complex transformation of energy systems that require a new type of governance, co-ordination, and mediation. Klaus Schuch, in his article, considers RTD programmes as institutions with specific cultural characteristics exemplified by the case of bilateral intergovernmental RTD programmes.  Their design is contrasted with the main characteristics of ´Mode 1´and ´Mode 2´ knowledge production with the result that bilateral intergovernmental RTD programmes have not so far largely adopted the fundamental assets of ´Mode 2´ knowledge production. Ágnes Fésüs and Imre Hronzsky tackle the problem of risk management as a strongly culturally contextualised process. They trace the modern history of the issue as a path from quantitative (based on mathematical probability) approach to an effort to harmonise the idea of objective knowledge with that of pluralistic democracy.

The second section of this book focuses on Innovation Policy – Tools and Practices. It offers an analytical discourse on the specific models, instruments, and practices of innovation policy. Innovation policy is a very complex process demanding a lot of creativity, reflexivity, and a sense for real opportunities and risks in implementing the chosen strategies.

Henry Etzkowitz follows the recent evolution of innovation processes in both conceptual and organizational dimensions. Innovation is transformed from relatively simple linear processes to non-linear complex processes with realignment and reconfiguration of all key innovation agents – by the means of a ´creative transformation´ through the Triple Helix. Networking and collaboration among universities and companies – assisted by government programmes – represent the most inspiring innovation environment. Balazs Lengyel uses Triple Helix and other conceptual models of creation and transfer of knowledge for describing local knowledge creation as parallel mechanisms at universities, public organizations, and firms. He presents a framework for local knowledge creation at the university-industry-government interface. Howard Rush, John Bessant, and Mike Hobday present an audit tool that enables identifying firm’s strengths and weaknesses in the development of their technological capabilities. The tool framework includes a model of technological capabilities and a categorisation based on the type of a firm. The Technological Capability Audit tool can be used for firms, academics, and policy makers and has already been used by academic communities in Korea, Thailand, and Ireland. The toolkit offers the greatest potential for policy-makers at regional and sectoral level. Marzenna Anna Weresa concentrates on industry-science relations and on their arrangements. She finds significant differences among EU member states especially in terms of regulatory frameworks and systems of incentive. She analyzes six qualitative indicators of science-industry linkages and makes some recommendations for CEEC in this field.

The book’s next section on National and Regional Innovation Policy investigates and summarizes the issues of innovation policy in the CEEC. National innovation policy has a limited history in CEEC. However, it has been full of events as its rise forms a part of societal transformation. The ongoing innovation policies and processes in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Slovenia share many common features facing the very transitional processes in these societies. However, each country has its own individual history. Thus, it may also be inspiring to compare the conditions of the aforementioned countries with those of the Tampere Region that is one of the leading European knowledge-regions.

Adolf Filáček sees a main problem regarding R&D and innovation processes in the Czech Republic in a very low level of demand for research on the part of the business sector. Domestic companies consider innovations to be excessively risky and do not have sufficient resources to finance R&D. However, there are also considerable problems on the supply side, such as the lack of applicable research results or the fragmentation of research support, etc. Štefan Zajac traces the transformational history of innovation policy in Slovakia in both conceptual and organisational dimensions. As a recommendation, he formulates a thesis to raise awareness about innovation’s relevance among all stakeholders by featuring innovation activities as the key to knowledge-society. Peter Stanovnik likewise makes a historical review of innovation policy in Slovenia. Furthermore, he considers the strengths and weaknesses of the Slovenian innovation environment as they were identified in international surveys. Several key institutional measures are implemented to increase the country’s competitiveness and innovation performance. Not surprisingly, Slovenia does economically well among the CEEC and her innovation prospects are also bright. Gerd Schienstock describes the success story of the Tampere Region. A deep drop of economy and an urgent challenge to set out on a new path for growth were features common to CEEC and Finland in the beginning of the 1990s. The Tampere Region has succeeded in breaking with its ´smoke-stack industries´ past and has created a new knowledge-intensive economy. The decisive factor resided in the combination of resources and processes in order to build a strong knowledge base and establish an effective institutional setting for an improved diffusion of information and innovations. 

The closing part of the book is devoted to Competitiveness and Catching-up. It covers the areas where innovations contribute directly to economic dynamics.

Balazs Borsi studies in detail the business environment in the EU and the United States. Statistical analysis confirms the existence of a relationship between economic development levels, innovation, and the behaviour of institutions. The paper interprets the relationship as an important and integral part of innovation and business culture. For Balazs Borsi, improving the business environment remains one of the greatest challenges in the EU in general and the CEEC in particular. Anna Kadeřábková analyzes three aspects of innovation performance of the new Member States of the EU – competitiveness and its sources, the role of competitiveness in stimulating the innovation performance in the less developed EU countries, and policy implications of the relation between competitiveness and innovation performance. Jiří Loudín features the opportunities and instruments that may be used by CEEC in their effort to catch-up with economic leaders and explores the role that innovations have to play in this process. The issue of relationship between innovation and imitation and that of the sources and drivers of high economic and innovation dynamics are addressed here. The author explores new conditions for catching-up in the context of a rising knowledge-based economy.

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This project was realized due to the support provided by the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, the Centre for Social Innovation in Vienna, the Austrian Science and Research Liaison Office in Brno and the Austrian Cultural Forum Prague.  In addition, the editors wish to thank to the authors for their valuable contributions to this book.

   Jiří  Loudín    Klaus  Schuch