Grassroots/bottom up innovation: how to facilitate emergence and flourishing Adrian Smith STEPS and SPRU, University of Sussex STEPS Symposium, 24th September 2009 Brighton Grassroots innovation from a socio-technical perspective Grassroots innovators need considerable social agency in order to align the material, institutional and discursive elements necessary for a ‘working socio-technical practice’: Business/organisational models Social acceptability Committed and resourceful participants Etc. Capabilities and skills Appropriate knowledge Social values Source: RTS Infrastructure Key technologies Idealists and entrepreneurs Work that is about knowledge, technique, organisation, economy, and politics Markets Risk and uncertainty strategies Distribution networks Institutions (norms and rules) Indifferent mainstream innovation policy aspiration Prevailing innovation systems and wider modes of provision (socio-technical regimes) cast grassroots activity in a disadvantageous light due to a variety of interdependent pathdependencies: 1. Capabilities 2. Economics 3. Vested interests 4. Politics and power 5. Infrastructure 6. Institutions 7. Technological and user cultures A mix of social and technological, material and discursive processes reinforce one another, directing developments along existing pathways, and disadvantaging alternative developments BUT! a. these regimes are under pressure too (e.g. environmental change, social pressure, demography, development ideologies, internal dynamics and contradictions); b. instabilities provide opportunities for alternatives c. policies and programmes for grassroots innovation need also to unsettle these regimes A multi-level perspective on grassroots innovation Soci o- t echni cal ’ l ands cape Environmental change, social pressure, demography, development ideologies Ma rk e ts ,u s e r p r e f e re n c e s Dominant / excluding I n d u sof tr yprovision modes t echni cal S c ie n c e La n d s c a p e d e v e lo p me n ts p u tp r e s s u r e o n e x is tin g r e g ime , wh ic h o p e n s u p , c r e a tin g win d o ws o fo p p o rtu n ity fo r n o v e ltie s Soci o- regi m e P o lic y Cu ltu r e Diffusion Ne ws o c io - te c r e g ime in f lu e n la n d s c a p e Socially inclusive pathways Scaling-up Internal Te c h n o lo gdynamics y S o c io - and te c h ncontradictions ic a lre g ime is ‘d y n a mic a ly s ta b le ’. Translation Ne wc o n f ig u ra tio n b r e a k s th r o u g h ,ta k in g On d if e r e n td ime n s io n s th e r e a re o n g o in g p ro c e s s e s a d v a n ta g e o f ‘ win d o ws o f o p p o rtu n ity ’ . Ad ju s tme n ts o c c u r in s o c io - te c h n ic a lr e g im Grassroots innovations Ele me n ts a r e g r a d u a ly lin k e d to g e th e r, a n d s ta b ils e in a d o min a n td e s ig n . I n te rn a lmo me n tu min c re a s e s . Technol ogi cal ni ches Le a r n in g p r o c e s s e s ta k e p la c e o n mu ltip le d ime n s io n s . Dife re n te le me n ts a re g r a d u a ly lin k e d to g e th e r in a s e a mle s s we b . Geels (2002) Source: T im