Understanding regional innovation cultures: A comparison of five German city-regions and their adoption of global innovation "best practices"

了解区域创新文化：德国五个城市地区的比较及其对全球创新“最佳实践”的采用

• 批准号: 393633367
• 负责人: Professor Dr. Sebastian Pfotenhauer
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Department of Science, Technology and Society (STS)
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Grants
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 德国
• 起止时间: 2017-12-31 至 2021-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/393633367?language=en
• 关键词: Understanding; regional; innovation; cultures; comparison

There is a growing sense that innovation - and innovation studies - are facing a crisis. On the one hand, innovation as a public discourse and imperative for regions and institutions is more prominent than ever. On the other hand, the geography of innovation is thoroughly unequal. Repeated failures to spur innovation in so-called developing regions have revealed the limits of theorizing innovation along traditional lines of universal models (e.g. National Innovation Systems) or best practices (e.g. Silicon Valley). Many parts of society feel excluded by the prevailing technocratic and elitist innovation approaches and consider the global innovation discourse a threat to their identity. At the heart of this problem is the persistent inability of innovation studies to seriously include local social and cultural factors into mainstream theory, leaving policy-makers and the public hanging with the task to enact innovation initiatives in culturally appropriate and socially robust ways.This project aims to develop the concept of Regional Innovation Cultures to better account for local sociocultural differences in innovation theory and associated public policy. We propose a three-year comparative study of five German city-regions - Berlin, Dortmund, Dresden, Karlsruhe, Munich - to investigate how each imagines the purpose, mechanics, and limits of innovation differently.Analytically, we put the tension between the supposedly universal mechanics of innovation and the unique local sociocultural contexts of implementation front and center. In each region, we aim to trace the reception and adoption of three best practice models of innovation (MIT, Silicon Valley, Responsible Research and Innovation) to show how implementations of the seemingly same model lead to diverse outcomes as they align with specific local visions, rationales, and identities. Our analysis thus flips the notion of Best Practice Transfer on its head: Instead of asking how well a region has implemented an innovation model, we analyze the differences in how city-regions re-envision themselves through innovation in keeping with their local culture.Theoretically, our study draws on the co-productionist strand of science and technology studies (STS) and, specifically, the concept of sociotechnical imaginaries to theorize innovation cultures. Empirically, the project represents the first qualitative, comparative study of innovation in Germany, carried out in collaboration with local partners. Based on the theoretical and empirical work, we seek to strengthen the normative, political, and epistemic underpinnings of innovation studies. This will provide important insights about the generalizability of local practices and experiences, and offer new inroads for inclusive and democratic governance in innovation. It may also shed light on fading public trust in politics and societal institutions, especially the role of innovation expertise, innovation governance, and visions of globalization.

越来越多的人意识到，创新和创新研究正面临危机。一方面，创新作为一种公共话语和区域和机构的当务之急比以往任何时候都更加突出。另一方面，创新的地理分布完全不平等。在所谓的发展中地区，鼓励创新的努力一再失败，这表明，按照普遍模式（如国家创新体系）或最佳做法（如硅谷）的传统思路沿着创新理论化的局限性。社会的许多部分感到被普遍的技术官僚和精英主义创新方法所排斥，并认为全球创新话语对其身份构成威胁。这个问题的核心是创新研究一直无法将当地的社会和文化因素认真纳入主流理论，离开政策-该项目旨在发展区域创新文化的概念，以更好地解释创新理论和相关公众的地方社会文化差异。政策我们提出了一个为期三年的比较研究的五个德国城市地区-柏林，多特蒙德，德累斯顿，卡尔斯鲁厄，慕尼黑-调查如何想象不同的目的，机制和限制的创新。分析，我们把创新的普遍机制和独特的地方社会文化背景的实施前沿和中心之间的紧张关系。在每个地区，我们的目标是追踪三种最佳创新实践模式（麻省理工学院，硅谷，负责任的研究和创新）的接受和采用，以展示看似相同的模式的实施如何导致不同的结果，因为它们与特定的本地愿景，理论和身份保持一致。因此，我们的分析颠覆了最佳实践转移的概念：我们不问一个地区实施创新模式的情况如何，而是分析城市地区如何通过创新重新构想自己，以符合当地文化的差异。理论上，我们的研究借鉴了科学技术研究（STS）的合作生产者链，具体来说，将创新文化理论化的社会技术要素概念。从经验上讲，该项目代表了德国与当地合作伙伴合作开展的第一个定性的创新比较研究。基于理论和实证工作，我们寻求加强创新研究的规范，政治和认知基础。这将为地方做法和经验的普遍性提供重要的见解，并为创新方面的包容性和民主治理提供新的进展。它还可能揭示公众对政治和社会机构的信任度下降，特别是创新专业知识，创新治理和全球化愿景的作用。