Dear Colleagues and Friends!

I wish to invite those of you that have shown interest in my writing to collaborate in research on innovation and innovation policy (for details, see Part A below.) At the same time, I wish to disseminate a selection of my best recent writing to research colleagues and practitioners in innovation policy and politics (see part B).

Regardless of what happens after Covid-19, the speed and direction of innovation processes and innovation policy decisions will remain absolutely crucial to ensure that future changes will be for the better in meeting and mitigating old and new challenges.

1. Invitation to collaboration

During my many years as a researcher, I have developed a keen sense of the importance of interactions among innovation research colleagues, as well as with politicians and policymakers. One reason for this interest is my conviction that collaboration typically improves the quality of both research results and policy advise. Collaboration also makes the work more fun – and, at the same time, more challenging. It may also facilitate funding. For these reasons, I wish to become involved more in interactive learning and research collaboration with some of you, and in so doing, to do new things in new ways – together! This may include:

• Research collaboration – writing together
• Working together on large projects
• Writing joint debate articles (op-eds)
• Participating in exchange of guest researchers
• Building up research environments (as I have done previously – see my CV, attached)
• Carrying out consultancies for governments (central, regional, or local), firms, public agencies, international organizations, etc
• Carrying out evaluations of various kinds
• Sitting on research advisory boards and innovation councils
• Teaching joint courses

Naturally, I want to build on my previous experiences referred to in the bullet points above and in my attached CV. In addition, you can find more detailed information on my home page: http://charlesedquist.com

I hope that the openness of this initiative will result in new collaborations that might otherwise not have taken place. Please contact me if you want to try out an idea!

2. Dissemination of research results

Below I briefly comment on the main ideas of four of my publications. Thereafter, follows a list of my ten most recent publications, all of which are downloadable.

• In my view, functional public procurement is potentially the most powerful innovation policy instrument that exists. It describes problems that shall be solved or functions that shall be fulfilled by means of procurement, rather than the products to be purchased. It works from the demand side. It is powerful for two reasons. Firstly, the volume of public procurement is enormous (15 % or more of global GDP), which is many times larger than the world expenditures on Research and Development! Secondly, this approach to public procurement can influence not only the speed but also the direction of innovation processes. Functional procurement is therefore particularly valuable in innovation policies whose objective it is to save the environment and climate – for example by enhancing innovation processes in the direction of solar power instead of coal. The problem is that functional procurement is currently used to a limited extent. In the post-Corona era, it will be more important than ever to use it. For a more detailed analysis, please see publication number 1 in the publication list below.

• The Swedish National Innovation Council (NIC) (est. 2015) was the first council in the world primarily devoted to innovation policy (rather than research policy). The council includes members from academia, industry, unions, and the government. The Swedish Prime Minister personally chairs its 4 meetings of 5—7 hours each year. Based on my first-hand experience as a member of the NIC, I believe that it can serve as a role model for the governance of innovation policy in other countries. Relevant questions in this context are why, how and in what form innovation councils should and could be established in other countries? The Swedish NIC, its operation and its results are described in detail in the article in Research Policy – number 2 in the list below.

• It is self-evident that innovation processes are multi-causally determined. Research does not automatically lead to innovations, and research is never sufficient to achieve innovations. But for decades innovation policy has been dominated by a partial and mono-causal (often linear) approach, where research is seen as the main determinant of innovations. Fortunately, practically everyone in innovation research has now abandoned the linear view for a systems approach. In innovation policy, however, the linear approach remains in power. A challenge to this linear view is the holistic innovation policy approach developed in detail in the book published by Oxford University Press - number 3 in the list below.

• The European Innovation Scoreboard is an annual report published by the European Commission. It contains a great deal of highly useful data. It also claims to provide a “comparative assessment” and ranking of “innovation performance” of the EU member states. A major constituent of the scoreboard is the Summary Innovation Index (SII). “Performance” is normally characterized as a question of achieving (or producing) something – an innovation output in this case. If we want to measure the performance of an innovation system, we must relate output to inputs. Remarkably, the SII does not do this. The SII claims to measure innovation performance by combining 27 input and output indicators and calculating a simple arithmetic average on that basis. This means that the SII is methodologically flawed and does not measure innovation performance in a meaningful way. Instead of being useful for the design of innovation policy (as intended), the SII is misleading and poses a serious obstacle to formulating such policies – to all EU member states and the EU as such. For example, the SII has ranked Sweden as number 1 in the EU regarding innovation performance for many years. This is absolutely not correct. Please see publications number 7 in Science Business and number 8 in Research Evaluation in the list below.

Depending on your interest, I might take initiatives to organize collaborations on aspects mentioned in the four points above, including:

• holistic innovation policy

• national innovation councils
• functional public procurement for innovation
• measurement of innovations

Please let me know if you are interested in collaborating on any of these topics!

I do look forward to your response!

Charles Edquist

Rausing Professor in Innovation Studies at CIRCLE, Lund University

Personal home page: http://charlesedquist.com (including CV)
E-mail: charles.edquist@circle.lu.se
Mobile phone: +46 (0) 708 136213

10 selected recent publications:

1. Edquist, C and Zabala-Iturriagagoitia, J M (April 2020). Functional procurement for innovation, welfare and the environment: A mission-oriented approach. Papers in Innovation Studies, Paper no 2020/1, CIRCLE, Lund University. Download at: http://wp.circle.lu.se/upload/CIRCLE/workingpapers/202001_edquist.pdf

2. Edquist, C. (May 2019). Towards a holistic innovation policy: Can the Swedish National Innovation Council (NIC) be a role model? Published in Research Policy, Volume 48, Issue 4. Download at  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2018.10.008 Alternative link here.

3. Borrás, S., & Edquist, C.  (2019) “Holistic Innovation Policy: Theoretical Foundations, Policy Problems and Instrument Choices”. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Can be ordered at: Oxford University Press. It can also be downloaded here.

4. Edquist, C., Nordlander, J., & Johansson, I. (June 2019). Köp snabba tågtransporter – inte höghastighetståg (”Buy rapid train transports, not high-speed trains” – in Swedish.) Debate article in the weekly magazine Ny Teknik, June 11, 2019. Link to the article, with references included.

5. Edquist, C. (2019). Rätt innovationspolitik kan försvara välfärden. (“The right innovation policy can defend welfare” – in Swedish.) Debate article in the weekly magazine Ny Teknik, January 16, 2019. Link to newspaper version. Link to Internet version, with references included.

6. Edquist, C (March 2019). Funktionsupphandling för innovation, välfärd och miljö. (”Functional public procurement for innovation, welfare and the environment” – In Swedish, but with a 4-page summary in English.) Report written at the request of, and published by, The Swedish Competition Agency (Konkurrensverket), Uppdragsforskningsrapport 2019:2. Download at: http://www.konkurrensverket.se/contentassets/916ecd96293549589d7ae5ee2e2c0eae/forsk-rapport_2019_2-.pdf

7. Edquist, C., & Zabala-Iturriagagoitia, J.M. (2018, June 22). Viewpoint: The latest EU innovation index is out. It’s flawed. Debate article in Science Business. https://sciencebusiness.net/viewpoint/viewpoint-latest-eu-innovation-index-out-its-flawed

8. Edquist, C., Zabala-Iturriagagoitia, JM., Barbero, J., and Zofio, JL (2018). On the meaning of innovation performance: is the synthetic indicator of the Innovation Union Scoreboard flawed?, Research Evaluation, pp 1 – 16, https://doi.org/10.1093/reseval/rvy011, June 2018. Alternate link.

9. Edquist, C., Zabala-Iturriagagoitia, J.M., Buchinger, E., and Whyles, G. (2018, June). Mutual Learning Exercise: MLE on Innovation Procurement, Final Report. Published by European Commission, Directorate-General for Research & Innovation, Directorate Policy Development and Coordination, Unit A.4 – Analysis and monitoring if national research and innovation policies. Click here for the MLE Overview report page, click here to download the final report.

10. Edquist, C. (November 2017). Developing strategic frameworks for innovation related public procurement – Thematic Report Topic A of the Mutual Learning Exercise (MLE) Innovation related public procurement. Published by European Commission, Directorate-General for Research & Innovation, Directorate Policy Development and Coordination, Unit A.4 – Analysis and monitoring if national research and innovation policies. September 2017. Downloadable at: https://rio.jrc.ec.europa.eu/sites/default/files/report/MLE-IP%20topic%20A%20report%20V2_03112017.pdf