Transformative outcomes: An approach to assess innovation policy from the perspective of SDGs

The United Nations Agenda 2030 is a significant departure from current development pathways, in a vision outlined as a complex set of goals and indicators. Pursuing that vision rapidly stretches the routines and rationales of governance and incites the reconfiguration of multiple systems of provision. To meet such provocation, science funders, innovation agencies and scholars have explored a novel framing of transformative innovation policy. It promotes directionality in innovation efforts, coordination across multiple policy domains, and adaptive forms of implementation. Thus, varied forms of experimental policy engagements have gained prominence as a way of inducing more systemic forms of innovation, ranging from highly controlled experiments via policy labs to experimental cultures. Yet, how and in which circumstances these are transformative remains underexplored. This presentation proposes an approach of transformative outcomes, to assess the transformative potential of innovation policy in general and experimental policy engagements specifically. It builds on sustainability transitions literature and work of the Transformative Innovation Policy Consortium. This effort aims to redress the narrow focus on upscaling of experiments, and to build tools that support the ongoing evaluation and conduct of these engagements. Two cases are used as illustrations: the Colombian coffee sector and the Finnish mobility transition. Experimentation can engender relevant dynamics of learning, coordination and resource mobilisation neglected in output-centric forms of evaluation, which take long to manifest. Considering the transformative outcomes of experiments as intermediary assessment and reflection tools can facilitate the governance and attainment of the SDGs