1. Globelics Academy 2017 Tampere, Finland
Innovation systems and social inclusion: towards Inclusive Innovation Systems
Judith Sutz
University Research Council, Universidad de la República
Uruguay

2. Inequality in recent times

3. The first guiding question:
How does innovation (and knowledge production) affect inequality...?
By action (innovations that lead to inequality)
By inaction (by not searching for effective solutions to problems that lead to inequality)
By indifference (by not trying to redress the inequality effects of certain innovations)

4. The second guiding question (a)
Through which aspects does inequality (and social marginalization) affect the mode of innovation and knowledge production?
The innovation agendas: problems of social exclusion become invisible to innovation because they do not steam from effective demand
The research agendas: problems of social exclusion
are very difficult to unearth in knowledge terms
they do not pay well in the academic reward system

5. The second guiding question (b)
Through which aspects does inequality (and social marginalization) affect the participation in innovation and knowledge production?
“User-producers” dialogues are particularly complicated to establish in highly asymmetric situations
Mutual trust is difficult to build
Lack of self-esteem can hamper fruitful joint-efforts to define and to solve problems
“People in the margin do not have minds in the margin”, but grassroot innovations tend to be “not seen”

6. The third guiding question
How can innovation (and knowledge production) be organized so that it contributes to a reduction of inequalities...?
Before attempting to propose an answer, it is worth formulating the question the other way around:
How can the fight against inequality and social marginalization contribute to enhance innovation and learning in developing countries?
In fact, such fight can be a great opportunity. A real window of opportunity

7. A vicious circle that could be transformed in a virtuous one
Business demand for innovation and knowledge production is structurally weak in developing countries
This lead to a de-legitimation of knowledge policies and to a sort of self-fulfilled prophecy: “our capacities are too weak to address business demand”
Under-utilization of existing indigenous capacities will continue unless an alternative source of knowledge and innovation demand appear (an effective demand both in cognitive and economic terms)
If problems of social exclusion of all sorts could be transformed in a sustained demand for research and innovation, a huge learning process will be under way
Stronger research and innovation capabilities could then “trickle-down” to business and competitiveness

8. Coming back to the third guiding question: How can innovation (and knowledge production) be organized so that it contributes to a reduction of inequalities...?
By action: taking on board problems of social exclusion into research and innovation agendas
By committment: paying special attention to the inequality effects of innovation and looking for mechanism to countervailing them
By support: devoting important efforts, including money, to transform inequality problems in problems “with voice” and effective demand
By “co-production”: building meaningful dialogues between people in different settings
By symbolic rewards: prizing highly those that solve problems of inequality and social marginalization

9. It would be unfair to say that nothing of this sort exists
On the contrary, countless examples of research and innovation that help solving the type of problems we are dealing with can be found
But they hardly make a difference, because they do not scale-up; they remain as isolated anecdotes
Scaling-up needs policies that foster systemic and reinforcing behaviors
Which actors can take responsibility for that?

10. We arrive now to the subject of this class: innovation systems and social inclusion
What kind of innovation actors, articulated into a innovation system, could deal effectively with social inclusion?
A commonsensical observation: search first of all there were commitment to social inclusion is structural
This leads to social policies
But social policies are not innovation actors!
This is precisely the problem!!
We need to transform those that have a mandate to take care of social inclusion (in many different ways) in strong demanders of research and innovation directed to endogenous capabilities
Social policies need “to become” innovation policies

11. What about innovation policies?
Business as usual will not do the trick:
“As a kind of countervailing power to the colonizing tendency emanating from market - oriented innovation policy we need to develop a wider field of politics – knowledge politics – that covers all aspects of knowledge production and takes into account that the production of knowledge has much wider scope than just contributing to economic growth”(Lundvall, 2010: 346).
We can incorporate to this much wider scope the commitment to social inclusion, that is, including as an explicit aim of the innovation policy the redressing of social exclusion
Innovation policies need to become social policies

12. Time for two examples Social policy in need of innovation policy:
A pasteurization method for maternal milk was
developed by a private firm on demand of a public
hospital, based on the solidarity of feeding mothers: it is
crucial for poor mother´s premature babies. Its
innovative conception makes it cheap to produce. Why
is it not widely produced and in use in every hospital in
the country and beyond?
Knowledge and innovation policy in need of social
policy:
A university program that funds research and innovation
projects oriented towards social inclusion finds great
difficulties in identifying suitable problems and needs

13. Can we be reasonably optimistic
The mixture we are looking for can be labelled Inclusive Systems of Innovation
Can we be reasonably optimistic
in this regard?
(i) A new pattern for research and innovation policies seems to be emerging, characterized by its direct relation with pressing social needs (particularly the family of demand-driven innovation policies); they can be seen as belonging to the field of knowledge politics in Lundvall’s sense.
(ii) In a more or less systematic way, we are witnessing social policies with an innovation policy turn (Brazil and its health policy)

14. The task is far from easy...
More than a “knowledge society”, we are witnessing the emergence of a “capitalist knowledge society”
“Knowledge-based inequality prevails in contemporary world” (Charles Tilly, 2005)
Inclusive Systems of Innovation will need to fight against all odds
But we are here, in the Globelics Academy, with bright young scholars committed to think differently
So the answer is yes, we can be optimistic!