PARTICIPATION FOR MISSION-ORIENTED INNOVATION: A governance perspective

Abstract

German and European innovation policy increasingly follows a mission-oriented approach to the design of research and development programmes. This mission orientation includes a holistic understanding of innovation that is not merely the implementation of technical solutions but also addresses social changes and challenges for solving complex problems. Demographic change and the ageing of society is such a societal challenge. For such a mission-oriented understanding of policy, participation is crucial: many activities of ministries and stakeholders want to initiate a dialogue between different groups (citizens, researchers, politicians, practitioners). The open question is how exactly the involvement of citizens in the new mission orientation of innovation policy is to be shaped and what the preconditions are. This chapter will explore the questions of which challenges for participation go hand in hand with a mission-oriented understanding of politics and how the role of participation can be systematised in this context. Both questions are related to innovation activities that develop solutions for challenges of an ageing society. To this end, the development towards a mission-oriented innovation policy, as already indicated, will be outlined. Building on this, participation is systematised from a governance perspective using a policy cycle model. This is illustrated with selected examples of demographic challenges. Finally, the results are discussed and evaluated.