Mission Accelerated: We need a new Theory of Change, and I am proposing Speed over Rigor.

From Schumpeter's 1934 foundational insights on creative destruction and innovation driving economic development to Wennberg & Sandstr?m's critical examination of the "entrepreneurial state in 2022," the academic landscape on what “Mission-Oriented” Innovation policies are - has evolved profoundly. Spanning nearly a century, scholars have explored the multifaceted nature of innovation, highlighting the roles of users (Eric von Hippel, 1988), national influences (Richard Nelson, 1993), industry transformations (David Audretsch, 1995), open innovation models (Henry Chesbrough, 2003), and the state's proactive participation (Marianna Mazzucato, 2013). Together, these works craft a rich tapestry, tracing mission-oriented innovation policies' evolution and multifaceted nature over nearly a century. The journey reveals a dynamic interplay of actors, from individual entrepreneurs to entire nations, all vying to harness innovation's elusive, transformative power.

Let’s see how it unfolded:

Socio-technical transformations are genuinely fascinating. They capture how societies reshape when technology and human systems interplay. Think of it as watching a dance between customs, institutions, and tech innovations, each influencing the other in unpredictable ways. One of the most vivid examples of technology-led missions is the man-on-the-moon project. It wasn’t just about propelling a rocket to a celestial body but about the assertion of human potential, ambition, and geopolitics – all channelled through the lens of technological prowess. It's a testament to how clear, ambitious technical goals can galvanise an industry and an entire nation. This dynamism, this push and pull between society and technology, keeps our world in perpetual motion, ever progressing.?

The Economic Pivot: Technology to Societal Challenges?

Economic pivots into mission-oriented thinking were more than mere shifts; they represented a foundational reimagining of how we perceived and structured our financial systems. New Economic Thinking, as championed by thinkers like Mariana Mazzucato, pushes us to question the traditional roles of public and private sectors. Mazzucato challenges us to rethink public financing of innovation. Instead of viewing the state as merely a regulator or market-fixer, she posits it as a dynamic actor, an 'entrepreneurial state' that can drive innovation and co-create market-shaping value. This perspective calls for a proactive public sector that isn't sidelined but is an active player, taking risks and catalysing growth. This fresh lens on economics prompts us to question, innovate, and pivot in our approaches.

The Current Conundrum:?Mission-oriented Innovation Policy (MOIP)

[subtext: you might want to read Amelia Olsen Boyd's's work on CSIRO's Mission Playbook to internalise where Australia stands on MOIP]

Purpose-driven missions, especially ones rooted in societal challenges, represent a grander vision for the future, moving beyond just profit motives. Take, for example, the UNDP's SDGs: these aren't mere objectives but compass points directing global progress. Mowery highlighted in 2010 that such initiatives emphasise collaboration across sectors, rallying around shared goals. Instead of isolated entities working in silos, we witness a grand confluence of forces, each leveraging their unique strengths. These missions, fundamentally, are about reshaping and rethinking our priorities. They present a narrative where markets, governments, and civil society aren't just co-existing but co-creating a better, more equitable future. It's a reminder of the power of purpose, the potential of what we can achieve when our ambitions are tethered to societal good.

Here's the Theory of Change I am proposing - Speed over Rigor.

In the past few months, I have had several exciting conversations with people like Peter Laurie - Robert Salomone on Bayesian Thinking, Michael Rosemann , and the Trust Lab peeps, along with QUT CFE researchers and industry partners, Gemma Alker GAICD ? and the Innovation Central Brisbane team, including Dr. Nadine Ostern with her trusted Retail hat, and Chad Renando and Rowena Barrett on shifting the dial, then getting familiar with capital creation system with Kevin Desouza and Dr. David M. Herold , and more importantly several repeated conversation with Bronwyn Harch (FTSE, FQA) on building innovation highways to fast track commercialisation outputs, or casual conversations with Holly Hunt and Carly Delaney on building the skills local authorities need to shape the places we deserve. (See, I am blessed with beautiful minds around me.)

I digress, so,

We all were talking about the diffusion problem, wrestling with scale and all its implications, and we hadn’t landed on any strategy; these were pure conversations around the impact mechanisms.?

So, how do we scale when working with missions or mission-driven policies?

The university innovation ecosystem must double down on working through open innovation and R&D ecosystems to scale the learning from prototypes. To drive education on what works in sustainable development, we need to move beyond thinking we alone can scale it. We must keep evolving how we open our data and insights to facilitate the partnerships that enable innovation to spread. For example, why do Queensland universities not open and share data on the innovation pipeline to work collaboratively towards missions?

Eric Von Hippel published a paper co-authored with Jason Potts on the social welfare gained from the Innovation Commons, which explores the counterintuitive economic incentives for firms to contribute information to Innovation Commons for free access by free riders. They discuss the innovation commons as “pools of innovation-related information that can be accessed by anyone for any purpose without payment and limit.”

Can we believe that for universities to stay relevant “open innovation could be our scaling mechanism and an excellent next mountain to climb?

Universities and Institutions (CSIRO alike), through mission-driven experimental and exploratory activities, we as a nation should be able to spot innovation-driven leads for action by vested stakeholders. We (the commons) must prioritise speed over rigour in our ecosystem experiments. This will happen only when we start housing innovation-driven businesses within university campuses. When universities and other research institutions work closely in labs (inspired by Michael Roseman’s work on Brisbane Trust Alliance), we often unearth potential research agendas for academic partners. For example, our work at ICB's Youth Research Forum calls for a quick turnaround experiment on behaviour related to decarbonising the supply chain and calls attention to new aspects, like the role of food waste in the circular economy. However, this could go further if an academic partner (IDEs like Bardee) would validate the initial findings. In another example, academics exploring Algorithmic agents can work with Big Techs to co-design a value-creation mechanism that is less 'self-preferencing' and maintains the quality of the content fed to their users. - keeping the Speed over Rigour as our ToC.

Academics and research entrepreneurs should be incentivised to map solutions to learn about the systems dynamics of grassroots innovations. Incentivising academia and research entrepreneurship to map these solutions is akin to setting explorers on an uncharted course. It acknowledges that true wisdom isn't confined to ivory towers; it thrives in the trenches where innovators tinker, experiment, and adapt. There are often potentially viable business models in the solutions maps that academics might unearth while working with industry partners. While universities aren’t the ones who can incubate or finance mission-driven entrepreneurs, our alums or partners in philanthropy and the private sector can be the ones to do it. And, when we create a proof of concept for new sources of data related to food waste or the use of AI in policymaking, using social media influencers to inform transformative tourism policies, the code (as a rule) developed can also have implications for a broader scale.

In the entrepreneurial arena, speed isn't just a virtue; it's the rocket fuel that propels us toward (accelerated) mission success in the economy." ????