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.

人们越来越感觉到，创新--以及创新研究--正面临危机。一方面，创新作为一种公共话语和地区和机构的当务之急比以往任何时候都更加突出。另一方面，创新的地理位置完全不平等。在所谓的发展中地区推动创新的屡次失败，暴露了按照传统的普遍模式(如国家创新系统)或最佳实践(如硅谷)对创新进行理论化的局限性。社会的许多部分感到被盛行的技术官僚和精英创新方法所排斥，并认为全球创新话语对他们的身份认同构成了威胁。这个问题的核心是，创新研究始终无法认真地将当地的社会和文化因素纳入主流理论，这使得政策制定者和公众的任务是以符合文化和社会活力的方式实施创新举措。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共政策中的地方社会文化差异。我们建议对五个德国城市地区--柏林、多特蒙德、德累斯顿、卡尔斯鲁厄、慕尼黑--进行为期三年的比较研究，以调查每个城市地区如何想象不同的创新目的、机制和限制。我们分析了所谓的普遍创新机制与实施前沿和中心的独特当地社会文化背景之间的张力。在每个地区，我们的目标是追踪三种创新最佳实践模式(麻省理工学院、硅谷、负责任研究和创新)的接受和采用情况，以展示实施看似相同的模式如何导致不同的结果，因为它们与特定的当地愿景、理由和身份相一致。因此，我们的分析颠覆了最佳实践转移的概念：我们不是询问一个地区实施创新模式的情况，而是分析城市地区如何根据当地文化通过创新重塑自己的差异。从理论上讲，我们的研究借鉴了科学技术研究(STS)的联合生产主义链，特别是社会技术想象力的概念来对创新文化进行理论化。从经验上讲，该项目是德国与当地合作伙伴合作开展的第一项关于创新的定性比较研究。在理论和实证工作的基础上，我们寻求加强创新研究的规范、政治和认知基础。这将为当地做法和经验的推广提供重要的见解，并为包容性和民主的创新治理提供新的途径。它还可能揭示公众对政治和社会机构日益衰退的信任，特别是创新专长、创新治理和全球化愿景的作用。