Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at
http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rpep21
European Politics and Society
ISSN: 2374-5118 (Print) 2374-5126 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rpep21
The role of advisory bodies in the emergence of
cross-cutting policy issues: comparing innovation
policy in Norway and Germany
Johan Christensen & Kathia Serrano Velarde
To cite this article: Johan Christensen & Kathia Serrano Velarde (2019) The role of advisory bodies in the emergence of cross-cutting policy issues: comparing innovation policy in Norway and Germany, European Politics and Society, 20:1, 49-65, DOI: 10.1080/23745118.2018.1515864 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/23745118.2018.1515864
© 2018 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
Published online: 03 Sep 2018.
Submit your article to this journal
Article views: 164
The role of advisory bodies in the emergence of cross-cutting
policy issues: comparing innovation policy in Norway and
Germany
Johan Christensenaand Kathia Serrano Velardeb
a
Institute of Public Administration, Leiden University, The Hague, the Netherlands;bMax-Weber-Institute of Sociology, Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, Germany
ABSTRACT
The article examines the role of policy advisory bodies in the emergence of national innovation policy. Cross-cutting policy issues such as innovation policy pose unique challenges to governments. Given that they do notfit neatly within the purview of existing government departments, it is often unclear who is responsible for dealing with a given issue. Issues may go unaddressed or else be subject to competing initiatives from different departments. What role do policy advisory bodies play in addressing and advancing cross-cutting policy issues? The article examines how the issue of innovation policy was taken up and addressed by policy advisory bodies in two empirical cases: Norwegian ad hoc advisory commissions examining innovation policy during the period 1972–2016, and the German standing expert commission for science and innovation formed in 2006. The articlefinds that policy advice on innovation was adopted to a varying extent by the political-administrative system. It argues that this can be attributed to the organisation of advisory bodies and to the efforts of these bodies to establish connections and draw bridges across an entrenched political landscape.
KEYWORDS
Knowledge regimes; policy advisory bodies; innovation policy; cross-cutting policy issues
Introduction
From climate change to security to family policy; many major policy issues of recent years cut across established policyfields. Cross-cutting policy issues pose unique challenges to govern-ments. Given that they do notfit neatly within the purview of existing government depart-ments, it is often unclear who is responsible for dealing with a given issue. Issues may go unaddressed or be subject to competing initiatives from different departments. While the administrative challenges posed by cross-cutting issues are well-researched (Lægreid, Rand-Liiv, Rykkja, & Sarapuu,2015; Rittel & Webber,1973), the aspect of policy advice has received little attention. Decision-makers rely on informed advice to formulate public policies, and such advice is produced by a range of advisory actors and bodies (Campbell & Pedersen,2014; Craft
© 2018 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.
CONTACTJohan Christensen j.christensen@fgga.leidenuniv.nl Institute of Public Administration, Leiden University, The Hague, the Netherlands
2019, VOL. 20, NO. 1, 49–65
& Howlett,2013). Yet, we know little about how policy advice institutions condition political action on cross-cutting policy issues. To what extent and how do policy advisory bodies address cross-cutting policy issues, and how does this condition political action on these issues? By political action, we understand government policies and activities on a particular issue.
We formulate some basic expectations in response to these questions. First, we expect cross-cutting issues to facilitate the acceptance of scientific expertise in policy advice. The fact that these issues do not fall within established policy domains means that they lack the entrenched bureaucratic and societal interests that are present in established policy areas (Head & Alford,2015). This can open up a space for other actors, such as academics, to raise and define issues. Second, we expect these same factors to represent a barrier to policy advice feeding back into the political-administrative system and becoming the basis for political action. Not only will established bureaucratic boundaries and interests hinder the adoption of policy advice on cross-cutting issues; these issues will also lack an estab-lished constituency ready to promote the cause.
In this article, we explore these dynamics in the context of innovation policy. In recent years,‘innovation’ has become a priority for the European Union and many national gov-ernments. Understood broadly, innovation policy refers to policies that affect innovation – that is,‘the introduction of new solutions in response to problems, challenges and oppor-tunities that arise in the social and/or economic environment’ (Edler & Fagerberg,2017, p. 4). This includes policies affecting all aspects of the innovation process, from the inven-tion to the diffusion, use, and marketing of new technologies (Lundvall & Borrás, 2011). Innovation policy covers a broad set of policy instruments that span science and research, technology, and industrial policies (Lundvall & Borrás,2011; Rothwell,1982). The forging of innovation policy may thus have far-reaching consequences, since it implies the redistri-bution of responsibilities and resources across entrenched policyfields. Aligning the inter-ests of the different actors involved in the innovation process is an important obstacle to the emergence of an innovation agenda. One way of dealing with this challenge was the formation of expert commissions to inform policy on the issue.
The present article examines the role of policy advisory bodies in the emergence and devel-opment of national innovation policy. We show how the issue of innovation was taken up and transmitted by policy advisory bodies in two empirical cases. Thefirst is the series of Norwe-gian ad hoc advisory commissions (NorweNorwe-gian Official Commissions – NOU) examining inno-vation policy during the period 1972–2016. The second case is the German standing expert commission for science and innovation,‘Expertenkommission für Forschung und Innovation’ (EFI), which was formed in 2006 and has played a central role in political debates in recent years. This is not a one-to-one comparison: in the German case, we look closely at one particu-lar advisory body and its historical antecedents; in the Norwegian case, we survey a series of advisory bodies over time. Yet, the two cases are empirical instances of the same phenomenon – namely, how policy advisory bodies address and advance the cross-cutting issue of innovation within highly compartmentalised bureaucratic systems.
Advisory bodies and cross-cutting policy issues
First, in recent work, Campbell and Pedersen (2014) stress the importance of ‘knowl-edge regimes’ in shaping public policies. They argue that the way in which the production and diffusion of knowledge is organised is crucial for understanding the ideas that inform public policies. Knowledge regimes are defined as ‘the organisational and institutional machinery that generates data, research, policy recommendations, and other ideas that influence public debate and policymaking’ (Campbell & Pedersen,2014, p. 3). This includes the range of organisations that produce policy-relevant knowledge–think tanks, govern-ment research units and party foundations, but also permanent and temporary policy advisory bodies – and the institutions that govern them. Their central argument is that the adoption of particular policy ideas is conditioned by the character of the organisations producing knowledge and the institutions that regulate them. In other words, the structure and practices of policy advice matter for how new issues are taken up and translated into policy. However, this approach says little about how the role of policy research and advice bodies depends on the type of policy issue being addressed.
A literature that pays attention to policy issue characteristics is the work on‘knowledge utilisation’. This literature argues that scientific knowledge can be used in several different ways within policy-making– including instrumentally (i.e. when knowledge is drawn upon to solve policy problems), strategically (i.e. using knowledge as ammunition to support existing political preferences), and symbolically (i.e. when knowledge is drawn upon to increase legitimacy by providing a veneer of competence and rationality) (Boswell,
2008; Weiss, 1979). According to this literature, the way knowledge is used primarily depends on features of the policy area or policy issue. This includes features such as the sal-ience of an issue, the degree of contestation, and the degree of uncertainty about policy solutions and their consequences (Boswell,2008; Radaelli,1999). The underlying argument is that different types of issues give rise to different politics. The type of issue affects the configuration of interests by determining the extent to which political, bureaucratic, and societal actors have a stake in the issue. Issue features also condition the need for information.
Innovation policy: crossing the boundaries of policyfields
‘Innovation’ is a difficult concept to grasp. It refers to the creation of something new, as the Latin root of the word suggests. Yet the conditions under which such novelty is produced remain largely unclear and open to discussion. Following the classic Schumpeterian dis-tinction between ‘invention’ and ‘innovation’ (Schumpeter, 1955), most scholars agree that innovation emerges from the recombination of existing knowledge, capabilities, and resources (Baregheh, Rowley, & Sambrook,2009). Innovation policy thus includes a broad set of policies that cover science and research policy, technology policy, and indus-trial policy. Since 2000, the innovation credo has become ubiquitous in European political talk (Korres,2007; Serrano Velarde,2013). With its appeal to make Europe the most com-petitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, the Council of the Euro-pean Union (2000) chose to propel innovation to the forefront of its political agenda. Nevertheless, the national political action that has followed such talk has remained largely uncoordinated, sporadic, and deeply anchored in national traditions of science and technology policy. Indeed, policy studies abound with remarks on the‘stickiness’ of national systems of innovation (Borrás,2015; Pellegrin,2007).
An explanation for the lack of convergence is that innovation policy challenges conven-tional forms of policy ownership: in contrast to science or technology policy, innovation policy is a cross-cutting issue that defies the division of labour between ministries (Borrás, 2004; Braun, 2008). While science policy is the province of educational and science ministries, technology policy is generally developed by a ministry of economic affairs or sectoral ministries promoting and procuring specific technologies. Since inno-vation policy targets the structural and organisational conditions enabling the creation, translation, and commercialisation of new knowledge (Whitley,2014), regulative respon-sibilities over this policy issue are generally diffuse. ‘In principle most ministries could be involved in efforts to redesign the national innovation system’ (Lundvall & Borrás,
2011, p. 612). According to Braun (2008), creating the political capacity to do innovation policy requires horizontal coordination between different policy fields and sectors as well as vertical coordination among those actors involved in the implementation of policy goals. In fragmented or compartmentalised political systems, horizontal and vertical coordination constitutes a major barrier to the emergence of innovation policy.
Research design
We examine the emergence and development of innovation policy by looking at how this cross-cutting policy issue was addressed and advanced by policy advisory bodies. We do so through a qualitative analysis of two empirical instances of the phenomenon. The two cases are Norwegian advisory commissions on the topic of innovation policy (1972–2016) and the German expert commission for science and innovation (2006-present).
strong coordinating institutions. In Germany, the challenge not only concerns the horizon-tal division of responsibilities between ministries but also the vertical division of compe-tences between the federal level and the Länder. The constitutionally anchored ‘Ressortprinzip’ (GG Art. 65 § 2) stipulates that ministers are autonomous and responsible for the design and implementation of policies in their respectivefields. While the ‘horizon-tal specialisation’ (Seibel,1996) of public administration has been challenged in recent years and especially with regard to energy policy (Hustedt,2013), interministerial coordi-nation remains underdeveloped.
Beyond this commonality, the two countries vary in important regards. First of all, they have different economic structures (further discussed in each case study). Second, they vary in the character of the knowledge regime, that is, how the production of policy-rel-evant knowledge and advice is organised. We are here interested in the role of official advisory bodies – i.e. groups set up by government to provide decision-makers with advice on public policies – rather than in other forms of advice such as direct counsel from the permanent bureaucracy or political advisers. One particular feature of the Norwe-gian knowledge regime is the importance of ad hoc advisory commissions in policy formu-lation. Norway has an extensive system of Norwegian Official Commissions, which are appointed by the government to examine major policy problems and provide recommen-dations about policy solutions. These commissions play an important role in bridging science and politics, often bringing together civil servants, academics and other stake-holders (Christensen & Holst,2017; Tellmann,2016). Existing studies show that these com-missions have had considerable influence on policy, for instance in various parts of economic policy (Lie & Venneslan,2010).
Germany has a long-standing tradition for the establishment of advisory bodies to the government. While some of the most prestigious advisory bodies exist since the post-war period, German policy-makers have since the 1990s increasingly relied on a highly di ffer-entiated system of ad hoc commissions including‘Enquete-Kommission’, advisory councils (‘Beiräte’) and expert commissions (‘Sachverständigenkommissionen’) (Fleischer,2015). As both the organisation and practices of policy advice are highly discretionary (Krick, Holst, & Gornitzka,2017), information on these bodies is sparse. There is no official public register of advisory bodies like in Norway or the United States. Furthermore, with the exception of a number of ‘Enquete-Kommissionen’, advisory bodies are generally bound to a single policyfield (Veit, Hustedt, & Bach,2017).
covering four decades, the German case is less straightforward. In absence of recorded data on governmental advisory bodies, the analytical approach we took was reconstruc-tive. We aimed to understand the institutional trajectory of policy advice on technol-ogy-related policy issues and their realignment into a fully-fledged innovation agenda by tracking the historical antecedents of today’s most visible German advisory body in thefield.
Norway
Innovation activities and outcomes
Unlike many of its neighbours, Norway is not a frontrunner in innovation. Most indicators of innovation, technology, and knowledge production, such as the level of R&D invest-ments, place Norway in the middle range internationally and far lower than the other Nordic countries (NOU,2016; OECD,2017). Norwegian innovation policy is also plagued by persistent problems regarding the division of responsibilities and the organisation of funding:‘Norwegian innovation policy today appears fragmented and poorly coordinated, and the country’s public innovation actors arguably lack sufficient authority, competence and resources to really make a difference’ (Fagerberg,2016, p. 15). Norway’s innovation performance is usually seen as mixed (OECD,2017). There are strong technology clusters in important resource-based sectors such as oil and gas, aquaculture andfisheries (Fager-berg, Mowery, & Verspagen,2009). Yet, innovation is low in other parts of the economy. Norway scores poorly on indicators related to high-technology industries and innovation activities and expenditures, particularly in small and medium-sized enterprises (OECD,
2017).
Overall expenditure on research and development is relatively low by international standards (about 2 per cent of GDP). This is mainly due to the low level of business R&D. Business spending on R&D is around 1 per cent of GDP, which is slightly below the OECD average and well short of the government’s long-term goal of 3 per cent total R&D expenditure of which two thirds from business (OECD,2017). Despite strong growth in spending on research in recent decades, the OECD cites persistent concerns about the lack of excellence in research and the quality of higher education.
Administrative organisation of research and innovation policy
In Norway, each ministry is responsible for research and innovation activities within its domain. This is referred to as the ‘sector principle’ (Ministry of Education and Research, 2017). Certain ministries, however, have a particular stake in science and innovation issues. The Ministry of Education is responsible for higher education and science policy, and also has a role in coordinating the research activities of the other ministries. Nevertheless, this role is rather weak: it is not accompanied by signi fi-cant powers over the prioritisation of research expenditures (NOU,2016, p. 88; OECD,
The main public body forfinancing research is the Norwegian Research Council – an agency that reports to the Ministry of Education. The Research Council also has an advi-sory role in research policy and is responsible for promoting research. Since 1993, Norway has had a single research council responsible for allfields rather than separate research councils for different fields. The research council includes a division for inno-vation. Another important body is Innovation Norway, a government-owned company responsible for innovation in businesses, competitiveness, rural development, and export promotion.
Advisory commissions on innovation policy
Questions of innovation policy have been addressed by a series of ad hoc advisory com-missions over the last four decades (seeTable 1).2
The Lied Commission (NOU, 1979) presented an early and quite sophisticated treat-ment of the relationship between science and industry. The commission was led by Finn Lied, former Minister of Industry (1971–72), director of the Norwegian Defence Research Institute, and a centralfigure in Norwegian industrial policy. The commission, tasked with examining the woes of Norwegian industry, highlighted technological inno-vation as one of the main paths forward. It stressed the importance of higher education, research, and technology for growth and productivity. It explicitly mentioned the ‘inno-vation process’ and pointed to the importance of science and higher education in driving technological changes in businesses. In order to facilitate this process, the commis-sion argued that education policy and the governance thereof ought to be more attuned to the needs of industry:
the need for growth and innovation in our businesses should have a greater say in the prior-itization of our education system and its orientation […] It may be a weakness that questions about the orientation of the education system are primarily treated in a ministry [the Ministry of Education] that is far removed from the industrial and commercial reality (NOU,1979, p. 87).
Table 1.Norwegian Official Commissions that examined innovation policy, 1972–2016.
Report number Title Appointing ministry
NOU1979:35 Structural problems and growth opportunities in Norwegian industry Industry NOU1981:30 Research, technical development and industrial innovation Industry NOU 1991:24 Organizing for coherence and diversity in Norwegian research Education NOU1996:23 Competition, competence and environment: Core strategies of
industrial policy
Industry NOU2000:7 New efforts for innovation: Assessment of measures for increased R&D
in businesses
Industry (+ Finance & Education) NOU2000:14 Freedom with responsibility: About higher education and research in
Norway
Education NOU 2001:11 From insight to industry: Commercialisation of research results at
universities and university colleges
Education NOU2005:4 Industry towards 2020– with a focus on knowledge Industry NOU 2008:3 New structure in higher education Education NOU 2011:6 A more open research system Education NOU 2013:2 Barriers to digital growth Government
administration NOU 2015:1 Productivity Commission, report 1: Productivity– foundation for
growth and welfare
Finance NOU2016:3 Productivity Commission, report 2: At a turning point: From resource
economy to knowledge economy
In other words, the commission drew attention to how the segmented governance struc-ture for research and innovation was a barrier to effective innovation policy. The Lied Com-mission was followed by a more specific inquiry into government support for technical-industrial research, which pointed out that Norway lagged behind in R&D investments and argued that the level of R&D should be doubled (NOU,1981). However, the innovation policy agenda outlined by these commissions found little political traction. In the 1980s, another element of the Lied Commission’s report took centre stage, namely the shift away from selective industrial policy and towards more efficiency-oriented economic policy (Lie & Venneslan,2010).
In the 1990s, the issue of innovation was again taken up by a series of commissions. One was a broad review of industrial policy (NOU,1996) that listed‘technology’ as a key chal-lenge and highlighted‘greater competence and increasing innovation’ as a core strategy for the future. It again stressed the relationship between technological development and productivity and competitiveness. Interestingly, it discussed the linkages between higher education, research, and industry using the notion of an‘innovation system’, which derives from the National Systems of Innovation approach (p. 244). The commission repeated the call for establishing closer ties between the education system and businesses. Innovation policy questions were also examined by subsequent commissions that looked at measures to increase R&D in businesses (NOU,2000) and considered future prospects for Norwegian industry (NOU,2005).
The topic of innovation and ideas related to innovation systems started to receive more attention from policymakers during this period (Fagerberg,2016). In 2003, the centre-right government adopted a‘Plan for Holistic Innovation Policy’, which was signed by the min-isters of industry and trade, education and research, local government, agriculture, and petroleum and energy (Ministry of Industry and Trade, 2003). The plan referred to the EU’s Lisbon Strategy and broad innovation strategies adopted in other countries. It aimed at the development of a holistic innovation policy, drawing on the concept of inno-vation systems to emphasise how innoinno-vation depends on a broad range of actors and pol-icies. The plan highlighted that a system in which policy areas are‘governed separately […] based on their own goals and values’ represented a barrier to effective innovation policy (p. 14).
There were also other administrative and policy developments in this period (Fager-berg,2016). In 1999, the government created a Technology Council (Teknologirådet)– a permanent body charged with giving parliament and government advice on new technol-ogy; and in 2002, the Norwegian Research Council established a dedicated division for innovation. Furthermore, in 2003, the government gathered various industry support bodies into a new government-owned company named Innovation Norway. Yet, Inno-vation Norway was given a broad portfolio, including not only business innoInno-vation, but also rural development and industry competitiveness. More recently, in 2014, the issue of innovation was highlighted in the centre-right government’s ‘Long-Term Plan for Research and Higher Education’ (Meld. St.,2014), which emphasised increased competi-tiveness and innovation capability and the development of scientific communities of out-standing quality.
economy to knowledge economy’, the commission highlighted ‘research, innovation and adoption’ as a key area of improvement. Drawing on economic research, the commission argued that a country’s ability to adopt new technologies from abroad is of critical impor-tance to productivity growth (NOU, 2016). Pointing to Norway’s weak innovation and knowledge production indicators, the commission argued that the organisation of research funding and the weak links between academic and business actors hindered the adoption of new technologies in Norway. The commission attributed these problems in large part to the governance of research and innovation policy, and more specifically to the weak coordination of these policy areas deriving from the sector principle and the fact that the responsibility for the two areas lay with different ministries (Education and Industry).
To summarise, the question of innovation has repeatedly been raised by commissions advising the Norwegian government since the late 1970s. The Norwegian advisory system thus proved capable of addressing the cross-cutting issue of innovation policy. In these commissions, the issue was defined by a combination of civil servants and academics, and the understanding of innovation policy drew in part on academic knowledge such as work on innovation systems and economic research on technology and growth. The analysis of problems and solutions remained remarkably similar over time: Norway under-performs in knowledge and innovation; policies linking science and industry are crucial to increasing performance; and compartmentalised governance structures are a barrier to such policies. But to what extent did the political-administrative system act on this advice? The persistence of these problems suggests that policy change in this direction was limited. At the level of strategies and plans, Norwegian policymakers showed a certain degree of interest in cross-cutting innovation policy. Yet, actual changes to the governance structure underlying innovation policy were limited and not particularly suc-cessful. In a compartmentalised administrative system, innovation policy persistently fell between different ministries and agencies and did not find powerful bureaucratic champions.
Germany
Innovation activities and outcomes
Germany has an export-led economy with a focus on research-intensive technologies such as mechanical and electrical engineering or chemical-based products. Since these industries came to prominence in the nineteenth century (Allen,2015), the links between science and industry have been strong. National R&D expenditure currently hovers at 2.9 per cent of GDP and accounts for 9.5 per cent of total OECD expenditure on R&D (OECD, 2016). Public and business expenditure on R&D are at 0.96 per cent and 2.02 per cent of GDP respectively. The existence of a highly differentiated network of public research organisations has been an important factor in the develop-ment of private-public partnerships, thus further strengthening the cooperative ties between academia and industry. Regarding research productivity, Germany currently ranks fourth globally in terms of publication output and number of citations (Dolata,
While the current situation seems to paint the picture of an innovation-driven economy, Germany struggled for a long time to foster entrepreneurship in new technologyfields. Germany’s specialisation in traditional industries encouraged a federal technology policy that aimed at supplying resources for the generation of technology-related knowl-edge in large-scale science and research laboratories, while avoiding market intervention altogether (Lehrer,2005). Formulating market-based incentives would not only have over-stepped the science ministry’s jurisdiction, but also contradicted the Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs, which categorically opposed government intervention in the market place. By the 1990s, criticism towards federal technology policy stimulated a new approach to the organisation and incentivisation of technological innovation. Since then, successive governments have installed a number of funding programmes to jump-start entrepreneurship in high technology areas such as biotechnology (Dohse,
2000; Fier & Harhoff,2002). With the introduction of the national‘High Tech Strategy’ in 2006 and the National Research Strategy ‘Bio Economy 2030’ in 2010, government support to innovation-based industry increased dramatically, both in scale and scope. We argue that the making of innovation policy in Germany was essentially an effort to reframe scattered programmes and competences to further new technologies at the federal level into a coherent strategy. We will see that the establishment of the EFI com-mission has contributed to this goal by providing overall visibility and credibility to the innovation issue.
Administrative organisation of research and innovation policy
Throughout history, German public administration has been little inclined to devise and implement radical solutions that involve a completely new take on problems and their relationships (Wollmann, 2001). Embracing cross-cutting policy issues thus goes against the grain of the formal division of labour between ministries. Responsibility for innovation-related issues at the federal level has traditionally been divided between two ministries. Authority over R&D policy and project-based funding belongs to the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, while the Federal Ministry of Econ-omic Affairs implements a range of transfer-oriented schemes and sector-oriented programmes.
In addition to the horizontal compartmentalisation of policy work, Germany has the particularity of being a federal state, meaning that innovation is handled at different pol-itical levels. The country’s federal states have major competences in education and science policy, and most of the federal programmes rely upon the state level for implementation (Edler & Kuhlmann,2008).
Advisory bodies on innovation policy
The new technology crisis in the early 1990s brought about change in this established advisory system. Industrial stakeholders called for the implementation of a council of tech-nological experts that could help Germanfirms anticipate the evolution of new technol-ogies (Lehrer,2000). The Federal Ministry of Education and Research responded to this call by mandating the governmental research agency, Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research (henceforth ISI), to conduct a series of Delphi Studies on the future development of technological innovation. In addition, the ministry initiated a series of ‘strategic dialogues’ between economic stakeholders, science and politics, thereby strengthening its role as moderator in an increasingly complex policy field (Deutscher Bundestag, 1994). With the electoral success of the social democratic party in 1998, federal programmes that fostered regional capacities in new technological fields were expanded and the forum ‘Partners for Innovation’ (2004–2006) was created. ‘Partners for Innovation’ was a hybrid advisory body in charge of discussing and designing innovation-friendly policy initiatives– very much in the spirit of the ‘strategic dialogues’. The scene was thus set for the development of an innovation-driven policy agenda.
The nomination of Frieder Meyer-Krahmer, an innovation economist and former direc-tor of the Fraunhofer ISI, as State Secretary to the Federal Ministry of Education and Research was a turning point for innovation policy in Germany (Interview, German inno-vation economist 20171003). Although German policymaking has a strong affinity with scientific knowledge, placing a scientist in a high-ranking administrative position happens very rarely in practice (Derlien, 2003). Meyer-Krahmer’s take on policymaking was unconventional. For instance, in his effort to promote a ‘comprehensive innovation policy’ (interview with former ministerial official), he established an intra-ministerial working group with people from different departments in charge of innovation-related topics. Within hisfirst few months in office, a concept paper was drafted that outlined the main ideas behind the comprehensive innovation agenda. The concept paper was written in the spirit of the National System of Innovation approach (Edquist,2011) and sur-faced at an opportune moment. After the electoral victory of the Conservative Party in 2005, conservative politician Annette Schavan took over the research ministry. She quickly understood the advantage of claiming the innovation agenda for her ministry and secured the portfolio for the implementation of a ‘High-Tech Strategy’ promised in the coalition treaty (Koalitionsvertrag,2005). In spite of changing government alliances, the history of German innovation policy is thus characterised by a remarkable degree of continuity since the 1990s. With the launch of the governments ‘High-Tech Strategy’ in 2006, innovation-related programmes and activities that were scattered across and within ministries were aligned and reframed as belonging to a common and coherent innovation agenda.
The expert commission for science and innovation
Science and Innovation (Expertenkommission für Forschung und Innovation, or EFI) was established by government decree in 2006 (Beschluss der Bundesregierung über die Ein-richtung der wissenschaftlichen Expertenkommission Forschung und Innovation, 2006). The EFI is an independent expert commission reporting directly to the chancellor, though it is financed by the research ministry. Moreover, the EFI’s yearly reports are required to be discussed in the parliament’s plenary session, thus raising political aware-ness for both the cross-cutting policy issue of‘innovation’ and the expertise provided by the EFI. For thefirst time in history, innovation-related issues were handled exclusively by an advisory body that had formalised working structures, a certain degree of political autonomy, and political permanence.
The following years were marked by an accumulated political interest in innovation issues, especially at the federal level. The continuous expansion of the‘High-Tech Strategy’ led by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research undoubtedly played a part in this. By mobilising both resources and political interests, the‘High-Tech Strategy’ carved out a pol-itical space for innovation-related topics that the EFI could take advantage of to dissemi-nate its more general ideas on the workings of innovation. But the establishment of this body, which brought together established economists, prompted new and unintended developments. For one, the EFI quickly distanced itself from the ministry. EFI experts upheld their professional (and scientific) duty to remain unbiased, a boundary-drawing strategy aimed at maintaining scientific credibility and political legitimacy (Korinek & Veit,2015). Furthermore, the commission systematically engaged with stakeholders and political actors about the principles of innovation policy, mainly in a mission to educate them about the workings of innovation policy. The drafting of EFI reports is characterised by the experts’ commitment to translate complicated economic knowledge and evalu-ations into vernacular language. In practice, this means that the experts‘sit together for days and read every single sentence of the yearly report to ensure broad comprehension’ (interview with an EFI expert). As a consequence, EFI reports are widely read across the political spectrum. Our interviewees confirmed that the EFI speaks to ‘everyone’ – that is, to people from other ministries, to industry, and to civil society actors.
In addition, our longitudinal content analysis of parliamentary debates shows that EFI reports are not only referred to by all MPs regardless of their faction, but have also eclipsed all other forms of scientifically based expertise in parliamentary debates on innovation pol-icies. After an initial phase where the scientific autonomy of EFI was questioned repeat-edly, EFI reports gained credibility. They became a legitimate basis for the argumentation of innovation-related topics in parliament, as the following utterance of an MP from the opposition party indicates:
decade of political stability, these factors have led to the development of an innovation agenda in Germany. The expert commission’s role in all of this was substantial. Through its unique position and workings, the EFI nourished its image as a scientific and indepen-dent expert group that political actors could rely on for a critical evaluation of both specific policy programmes and the general state of innovation in Germany. It gained political visi-bility and credivisi-bility by (1) ensuring its autonomy from politically entrenched interests, (2) developing a new type of expertise and report culture accessible to all, and (3) cultivating a network of partners and political allies across both administration and societal stakeholders.
Discussion and conclusion
What role do policy advisory bodies play in addressing and advancing cross-cutting policy issues? We have explored this question by examining advisory bodies dealing with inno-vation policy. Innoinno-vation is clearly a‘wicked’ problem for policymakers (Rittel & Webber,
1973). The degree of abstraction and the complex social dynamics involved make opera-tionalising the concept of innovation for political purposes a difficult exercise (Havas, Schartinger, & Weber,2010).
The two empirical instances we investigated share a number of features. First, in both cases, government had strong incentives to invest in the innovative capacities of the country. With its current reliance on resource-based industries, Norway needs to diversify its economic portfolio in order to ensure economic sustainability in the future. Germany is primarily concerned about demographic change and labour shortage. Investing in new technologies and industries might not only be a way to attract a qualified labour force from abroad but also to ensure the employment situation of an ageing population. Second, the two countries faced similar challenges in addressing cross-cutting policy issues: they both have a high degree of horizontal and (for the German case) vertical com-partmentalisation that pose a problem to the mobilisation of resources and political atten-tion across policyfields.
While advisory bodies were active in both cases, there were substantial differences in the extent to which policy advice on innovation was acted upon by politicians. In Norway, the issue of innovation was raised repeatedly by commissions. They argued that technological innovation was crucial for productivity and competitiveness and that closer links between industry and research were necessary to stimulate innovation. However, these recommendations mostly failed to generate political action. The govern-ance system for innovation policy anno 2017 suffered from many of the same problems as 40 years earlier, and Norway continued to under-perform on various indicators of inno-vation and knowledge production. In Germany, the advice of the expert commission for science and innovation (EFI) had greater resonance among politicians. The EFI’s reports stimulated the political debate on innovation in Germany, thereby furthering the develop-ment of a fully-fledged innovation agenda.
cross-cutting issues to be adopted and put into practice by political-administrative actors. This was clearly on display in the Norwegian case: while the cross-cutting issue of innovation got extensive attention from advisory bodies, their advice found little traction within an administrative structure where the responsibility for innovation policy was distributed across different ministries and agencies. No ministry or agency claimed ownership over the innovation topic, leaving the issue in an administrative limbo. The same can be said for the political sphere: although some political initiatives were made to address the issue, no clear champions of innovation policy emerged.
Why, then, did an innovation agenda break through in Germany? Following Campbell and Pedersen, this outcome may in part be linked to the particular structure and practices of policy advice bodies. In the turmoil of changing administrations, the EFI was set up as permanent and autonomous body directly accountable to the chancellor. In contrast to the informal workings of traditional advisory bodies, the EFI’s structure was formalised and specified by government decree. And its yearly reports were required to be discussed in parliament. The EFI also found a powerful champion in the Ministry of Education and Research, which had a strong interest in the further development of the much-acclaimed High Tech Strategy in which innovation played a central role. Drawing on its expertise, the EFI used this privileged position to establish itself as a primary supplier of knowledge and analysis on innovation to a broad network of political and administrative actors. The EFI’s efforts to communicate its findings in accessible language helped its reports find a wide readership among policymakers.
Norwegian commissions on innovation lacked this kind of permanence and central pol-itical location. Once a commission had submitted its report, the issue was left to the perma-nent administration, where it usually stalled. Furthermore, the Norwegian commissions were not politically important enough to command the attention of government leaders with the ability to impose these priorities on the ministries. The fact that the issue of innovation was recently raised by a politically important commission appointed by the Ministry of Finance– the Productivity Commission– may indicate that this is about to change. Backed by a min-istry with cross-cutting competences and responsibilities, this advice could potentially stimu-late an overarching and centrally-formustimu-lated policy on innovation. The reception of the report, however, suggests that the structural barriers to cross-cutting policy remain, with ministries and agencies defending their turf and existing policy priorities and practices.
Innovation is certainly not the only cross-cutting issue on which government seeks policy advice.‘Wicked problems’ are pervasive in contemporary policy-making and include some of the most salient policy issues of today, such as climate change, immigration, security and social welfare (Lægreid et al., 2015). Given the importance of wicked problems and the growing reliance on knowledge in policy-making, looking more closely at the politics of policy advice surrounding cross-cutting issues is an important task for future research.
Notes
2. The list of commissions was compiled in two steps: 1) a search in a database of NOU commis-sions for titles containing keywords associated with innovation policy: innovation (innovasjon, fornying), R&D (FoU), research. ( forskning), knowledge (kunnskap), technology (teknologi) and industry (industri); 2) a selection among these commissions of the reports that actually dealt with questions of innovation policy.
References
Allen, M. M. (2015). National innovation system in Germany. In C. L. Cooper (Ed.), Wiley encyclopedia of management (pp. 1–18). Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Baregheh, A., Rowley, J., & Sambrook, S. (2009). Towards a multidisciplinary definition of innovation. Management Decision, 47(8), 1323–1339.
Beschluss der Bundesregierung über die Einrichtung der wissenschaftlichen Expertenkommission Forschung und Innovation 2006. [Decree of parliament on the founding of the scientific expert commission on research and innocation 2006].
Borrás, S. (2004). System of innovation theory and the European Union. Science and Public Policy, 31 (6), 425–433.
Borrás, S. (ed.). (2015). Sources of national institutional competitiveness: sensemaking in institutional change. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Boswell, C. (2008). The political functions of expert knowledge. Journal of European Public Policy, 15 (4), 471–488.
Braun, D. (2008). Organising the political coordination of knowledge and innovation policies. Science and Public Policy, 35(4), 227–239.
Campbell, J. L., & Pedersen, O. K. (2014). The national origins of policy ideas. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Christensen, J., & Holst, C. (2017). Advisory commissions, academic expertise and democratic legiti-macy: The case of Norway. Science and Public Policy, 44(6), 821–833.
Council of the European Union. (2000). Conclusions of the Lisbon European Council 23–24 March 2000.
Craft, J., & Howlett, M. (2013). The dual dynamics of policy advisory systems: The impact of externa-lization and politicization on policy advice. Policy and Society, 32(3), 187–197.
Derlien, H.-D. (2003). German public administration: Weberian despite ‘modernization’. In K. K. Tummala (Ed.), Comparative bureaucratic systems (pp. 97–123). Lanham: Lexington Books. Deutscher Bundestag. (1994). Unterrichtung durch die Bundesregierung‘Bericht der Bundesregierung
zur Intensivierung des Dialogs zwischen Wirtschaft, Wissenschaft und Staat zu Forschung, Technologie und Innovation’, BT-Dr. 12/6934. [Federal report for the intensification of the dialogue between the economy, science and the state on technology and innovation].
Deutscher Bundestag. (2006). Antrag auf informatives Berichtswesen als Grundlage einer guten Forschungs- und Technologiepolitik, BT-Dr. 16/646. [Proposal for the development of an infor-mation system as the basis for good research and technology policy].
Deutscher Bundestag. (2014). 04.12.2014 - BT-Plenarprotokoll 18/73, S. 6874C–6895C.
Dohse, D. (2000). Technology policy and the regions— the case of the BioRegio contest. Research Policy, 29(9), 1111–1133.
Dolata, U. (2016). Forschung und Entwicklung in der Wirtschaft [R&D in the industry]. In D. Simon, A. Knie, S. Hornbostel, & K. Zimmermann (Eds.), Handbuch wissenschaftspolitik (pp. 609–626). Wiesbaden: Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden.
Edler, J., & Fagerberg, J. (2017). Innovation policy: What, why, and how. Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 33(1), 2–23.
Edler, J., & Kuhlmann, S. (2008). Coordination within fragmentation: Governance in knowledge policy in the German federal system. Science and Public Policy, 35(4), 265–276.
Fagerberg, J. (2016). Innovation systems and policy: A tale of three countries. Stato e Mercato, 36(1), 13–40.
Fagerberg, J., Mowery, D. C., & Verspagen, B. (2009). The evolution of Norway’s national innovation system. Science and Public Policy, 36(6), 431–444.
Fier, A., & Harhoff, D. (2002). Die Evolution der bundesdeutschen Forschungs- und Technologiepolitik. Rückblick und Bestandsaufnahme [The evolution of the German research and technology policy]. Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, 3(3), 279–301.
Fleischer, J. (2015). Organisierte Expertise und die Legitimation der Verwaltung. Sektorale und struk-turpolitische Dynamiken der Gremienlandschaft auf Bundesebene [Organzed expertise and the legitimation of administrative work. Sectoral and structral dynamics in the German advisory land-scape]. DMS, 8(2), 315–335.
Havas, A., Schartinger, D., & Weber, M. (2010). The impact of foresight on innovation policy-making: Recent experiences and future perspectives. Research Evaluation, 19(2), 91–104.
Head, B. W., & Alford, J. (2015). Wicked problems. Administration & Society, 47(6), 711–739.
Hustedt, T. (2013). Analyizing policy advice. The case of climate policy in Germany. Central European Journal of Public Policy, 7(1), 88–110.
Koalitionsvertrag von CDU, CSU und SPD. (2005, November 11). Gemeinsam für Deutschland. Mit Mut und Menschlichkeit. [Together for Germany].
Korinek, R., & Veit, S. (2015). Only good fences keep good neighbors! The institutionalization of min-istra-agency relationships at the science-policy nexus in German food safety policy. Public Administration, 93(1), 103–120.
Korres, G. M. (2007). Industrial and innovation policy in Europe: The effects on growth and sustain-ability. Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, 27(2), 104–117.
Krick, E., Holst, C., & Gornitzka, A. (2017, September). The negotiated expertise of policy advisory com-mittees and the dynamics and variations of knowledge regimes. Paper presented at the ECPR general conference, the University of Oslo.
Lægreid, P., Rand-Liiv, T., Rykkja, L., & Sarapuu, K. (2015). Emerging coordination practices of European central governments. International Review of Administrative Sciences, 81(2), 346–351. Lehrer, M. (2000). Has Germanyfinally fixed its high-tech problem? The recent boom in German
tech-nology-based entrepreneurship. California Management Review, 42(4), 89–107.
Lehrer, M. (2005). Science-driven vs. market-pioneering high tech. Comparative German technology sectors in the late nineteenth and late twentieth centuries. Industrial and Corporate Change, 14(2), 251–278.
Lie, E., & Venneslan, C. (2010). Over evne. Finansdepartementet 1965–1992 [Above means: the Ministry of Finance]. Oslo: Pax Forlag.
Lundvall, B.-A., & Borrás, S. (2011). Science, technology, and innovation policy. In J. Fagerberg, D. C. Mowery, & R. R. Nelson (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of innovation (pp. 599–631). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Meld. St. (2014). Langtidsplan for forskning og høyere utdanning [Long-term plan for research and higher education]. (Meld. St. 7, 2014–2015). Oslo: Ministry of Education.
Miles, M. B., & Huberman, A. M. (2007). Qualitative data analysis: An expanded sourcebook. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Ministry of Education and Research. (2017). Veileder for sektoransvaret for forskning [Supervisor for sectoral responsibility for research]. Oslo: Ministry of Education and Research.
Ministry of Industry and Trade. (2003). Fra idé til verdi. Regjeringens plan for en helhetlig innovasjon-spolitikk [From idea to value: the government’s plan for a holistic innovation policy]. Oslo: Ministry of Industry and Trade.
NOU. (1979). Strukturproblemer og vekstmuligheter i norsk industri [Structural problems and growth opportunities in Norwegian industry]. (NOU1979:35). Oslo: Ministry of Industry.
NOU. (1996). Konkurranse, kompetanse og miljø: næringspolitiske hovedstrategier [Competition, com-petence and environment: core Strategies of industrial policy]. (NOU1996: 23). Oslo: Ministry of Industry.
NOU. (2000). Ny giv for nyskaping: Vurdering av tiltak for økt FoU i næringslivet [New efforts for inno-vation: assessment of measures for increased R&D in businesses]. (NOU2000: 7). Oslo: Ministry of Industry.
NOU. (2005). Industrien mot 2020– med kunnskap i fokus [Industry towards 2020 – with a focus on knowledge]. (NOU2005:4). Oslo: Ministry of Industry.
NOU. (2016). Ved et vendepunkt: fra ressursøkonomi til kunnskapsøkonomi. Produktivitetskommisjonens andre rapport [At a turning point: from resource economy to knowledge economy]. (NOU2016: 3). Oslo: Ministry of Finance.
OECD. (2016). OECD science, technology and innovation outlook 2016. Paris: OECD Publishing. OECD. (2017). OECD reviews of innovation policy: Norway 2017. Paris: OECD Publishing.
Pellegrin, J. (2007). Regional innovation strategies in the EU or a regionalized EU innovation strategy? Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research, 20(3), 203–221.
Radaelli, C. (1999). The public policy of the European Union: Whither politics of expertise? Journal of European Public Policy, 6(5), 757–774.
Rittel, H., & Webber, M. (1973). Dilemmas in a general theory of planning. Policy Sciences, 4(2), 155– 169.
Rothwell, R. (1982). Government innovation policy. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 22 (1), 3–30.
Schumpeter, J. A. (1955). The theory of economic development: An inquiry into profits, capital, credit, interest, and the business Cycle (5th ed.), print. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Pr.
Seibel, W. (1996). Administrative science as reform: German public administration. Public Administration Review, 56(1), 74–81.
Serrano Velarde, K. (2013). Benchmarking for the greater good? The‘new investment paradigm’ in European higher education. In P. D. Gay, & G. Morgan (Eds.), New spirits of capitalism? (pp. 251– 274). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Tellmann, S. M. (2016). Experts in public policymaking: influential, yet constrained (Doctoral disser-tation). Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences.
Veit, S., Hustedt, T., & Bach, T. (2017). Dynamics of change in internal policy advisory systems: The hybridization of advisory capacities in Germany. Policy Sciences, 50(1), 85–103.
Weiss, C. H. (1979). The many meanings of research utilization. Public Administration Review, 39(5), 426–431.
Whitley, R. (2014). How do institutional changes affect scientific innovations? The effects of shifts in authority relationships, protected space, and flexibility. In R. Whitley & J. Gläser (Eds.), Organizational transformation and scientific change: The impact of institutional restructuring on uni-versities and intellectual innovation. Research in the sociology of organizations vol. 42 (pp. 367– 406). Bingley: Emerald Publishers.
