Project time line: 2017 – 2019

This project aims at developing a new theoretical approach to the understanding of the evolution of systems of innovation, and to apply this approach to the case of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). While the theoretical formulation of modes of innovation is new to the literature on systems of innovation, it has already been exposed to peer review in its publication in book chapters and scientific journal articles.

Within this approach the concept of viability will be developed as an assessment tool which can be applied to systems of innovation, defined broadly, at three main levels of aggregation – national, supra-national and sub-national.  The specific applications of this tool will in the first round be the Southern African Development Community (SADC), with a proposed evaluation of the national systems of innovation of individual member states and that of the SADC system of innovation as a whole. South African will be used as the case for the evaluation of the viability of sub-national systems of innovation at the provincial level. In the second round, this tool will be applied to other national systems of innovation within other regional economic communities in Africa.

Highlights to date

  • Scerri. M. (ed). 2016. The Emergence of Systems of Innovation in South(ern) Africa: Long Histories and Contemporary Debates. Johannesburg: MISTRA and Real African Publishers.
  • Scerri. M. 2017. Modes of Innovation and the Prospects for Economic Development in South Africa and Tanzania. In Kuhlmann, S & Ordóňez-Matamoros, G. (eds.). Research Handbook on Innovation Governance for Emerging Economies: Towards Better Models. Cheltenham, UK; Massachusetts, USA: Edward Elgar.

Project team

Science and technology and innovation studies

Research area