Inclusive Innovation Systems: How Innovation Intermediaries can strengthen the Innovation System

Abstract

The world recently welcomed its 7 billionth human inhabitant, and sadly enough more than half of these people are living in poverty. Four billion poor struggle to get sufficient access to basic needs like food, water, healthcare and shelter.This group is referred to as the Base of the Pyramid, or BoP

There is a need for pro-poor, or inclusive innovation. This requires broad support from governments, companies and other organizations around the world. It is not only about making products and services for the poor, but also about enhancing innovative capacity at the BoP. Innovation intermediaries seek ways to support inclusive innovation.They however lack a sound methodology to assess current status of innovative capacity, and identify opportunities for intermediary intervention to strengthen it.

To that end, this research introduces the notion of Inclusive Innovation Systems. Together with the Functions of Innovation Systems (FIS) approach it is presented as a framework for analysing the set of actors, institutions, and societal subsystems that contribute to the emergence of inclusive innovations.

This research shows how a tool, which is based on the Functions of Innovation Systems approach, can be used as a structural approach to come to context specific recommendations for innovation intermediaries. For evaluation purposes, the tool is applied to the agro-food sector of Vietnam.