Flemish Advisory Council for Innovation and Entrepreneurship

The world is facing urgent societal challenges that require fundamental change, such as the climate crisis or the nitrogen crisis. In its Advisory Report 35, VARIO focuses on Transformative Innovation Policy which plays a crucial role in system change or system transitions. Consider, for instance, the transition to a digital and circular agri-food system or to a circular economy. Based on the AWTI-VARIO country review (December 2023) and a background report, VARIO developed a participatory governance framework for Transformative Innovation Policy, with 8 recommendations, that creates proximity with local innovation dynamics. Here, continuous exchange of information between the policy cycle and an external experimental space is essential, e.g. to be able to make targeted adjustments to regulations or other policy levers, in order to create system-level impact and to accelerate (radical) innovations.

In 2023, VARIO and the Dutch AWTI (Advisory Council for Science, Technology and Innovation) both worked on an advisory process on Transformative Innovation Policy. This third-generation innovation policy focuses on system innovation or system change. Merely optimizing existing systems based on incremental innovations is insufficient, as the old, unsustainable systems perpetuate the problems. In a joint country review it was investigated how transformative innovation policies are shaped in Sweden, Switzerland and Austria. The aim was to learn from these countries' policy approaches for their own advisory process.