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 Capabilities Etc. and skills Appropriate knowledge

Social values Risk and uncertainty Source: RTS strategies Infrastructure Key technologies

Idealists and entrepreneurs Distribution networks Work that is about knowledge, technique, Markets Institutions (norms and rules) organisation, economy, and politics 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 path- dependencies: 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

Environmental change, social pressure, Soci o- t echni cal ’ l andscape demography, development ideologies

Lands cape developments pu tpr e s s u r e on ex isting r e g ime , wh ich op e n s up , Ne w so c io- tec h n ica l cr e a ting wind o ws r egime inf luences Marke ts, us e r o fo p p o rtu n ity fo r n o v e ltie s lan d s c a p e preferences Soci o- Dominant / excluding Socially inclusive I n d u s try Diffusion t echni calmodes of provisionSc ien c e pathways regi me Po licy Cu ltur e Scaling-up TeInternal c h n o log dynamics y So c io- tec h n ica lreg ime is ‘dy n a mica lly stab le’. and contradictions TranslationNe w co n f igu ration br e a k s thr o u g h tak, ing On diffe r e n tdime n s ion s the r e are on g o ingproc e s s e s a d v a n tag e of ‘ wind o ws of op p o rtun ity’ . Ad jus tme n ts oc c u r in so c io- tec h n ica lr e g ime .

Grassroots innovations Eleme n ts ar e gr a d u a lly link e d tog e the r, a n d stab ilise in a do mina nde t s ign . I n terna lmome n tum inc rea s e s .

Technol ogi cal ni ches Le a r ning pr oc e s s e s take plac e on multiple dimens ions . Differen teleme n ts are gr a d u a lly link e d tog e the r ina se a mles swe Source: b . Geels (2002) T ime