Ecologies of Innovation

Abstract

Imprint: KIOES Opinions are published by the Commission for Interdisciplinary Ecological Studies (KIOES)of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (OeAW). KIOES publishes current opinions written, initiated or invited by KIOES related to topical subjects on an irregular basis in KIOES Opinions. The target audience includes scientists, policy makers and the public. Opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author(s), and they do not necessarily reflect in any way those of KIOES or OeAW. KIOES Opinions | 6Verena Winiwarter (Ed.) When Harald Katzmair invited a group of people to join a breakout group discussion at Austria's Top Level Forum for Science-Policy Dialogue, the Forum's Alpbach's Technology Talks in 2016, he formulated the scope of the session as follows: ECOLOGIES OF INNOVATION… to discuss a generalized model of knowledge (including its different cultures of "searching for solutions") that should inhabit an innovation ecology in order to be successful. Based on this discussion the session also should address the practical questions of new frameworks and policy measures that are required to strengthen the responsive variety (resilience) of our innovation system.The session was designed to shed light from different angles at the question "how the horizontal connectedness of an innovation system, the collaboration across different modes of knowing could be strengthened", if that were the goal. To address this issue, Harald Katzmair asked participants to think about non-traditional questions, e.g. about: "The specific role of charitable foundations to fund crossscale-science but also the need for special governmental programs or institutional manifestations to strengthen the field of open innovation and citizen/ community science. " All contributors were offered two questions to concentrate their thoughts:• How can we learn in a systemic way from history the vital lessons we need to bear tribute to in future innovations and then harness those lessons for innovation processes?• What lessons can we extract from the examples of environmental history and related fields of research on how an innovation cycle can benefit from collaboration across different regimes?The session was based on the concept of the cycle of "creative destruction", as first formulated by eminent economist Joseph Schumpeter. By bringing in Resilience Science, Cultural Theory and a longterm, open-science-based perspective on Sustainable Innovation, light should be shed on different stages of the innovation cycle, as they require different "characters": scientists, entrepreneurs, visionaries, etc. Harald Katzmair brought these different actors into play, because, as the session abstract formulated:"computational science shows that these different characters apply different search strategies to solving problems. Citizen and Community Science as a broker within this ecology of innovation has a special (practical) role. "It turned out that three of the participants were affiliated in various ways with IIASA, the International Institu...