David Wield

This paper investigates why it is so hard for engineering-based inclusive innovation (EII) to fit in mainstream scaling frameworks. Can new transdisciplinary design approaches build trajectories that are more inclusive and environmentally sustainable? There are a range of constraints on EII. These include the poverty of those who might benefit most, but also institutional barriers to the inclusion of some actors with knowledge and experience of scaling innovations towards the mainstream. This paper presents a review of the extant literature on conceptual understanding of scaling EIIs and a set of case studies of attempts to scale and mainstream innovations. We have gathered data from and analysed scaling-up case studies from different sectors and geographies. The paper advocates for the advantages of evolutionary approaches to development engineering that take account of institutional variety to bridge gaps in static, neo-classical and one-size-fits-all approaches of conventional frameworks for scaling. We propose the EII Scaling (EIIS) framework, incorporating an evolutionary, transdisciplinary approach to innovation that enables engagement with the complexities and challenges of scaling and delivering EII. We also illustrate that the engineering innovations not replicated on a large scale have not necessarily failed, as one size fits all does not apply to the scaling up of EIIs.

There is potentially tension between world class research and global standards on the one hand and local contexts of engineering and development practice on the other. One aims at scientific status and entirely new knowledge, suggesting just one standard of quality. The other at building products and processes that might bring socio‐economic development, often prizing pragmatism and bricolage. The UK‐funded programme ‘Understanding Sustainable Energy Solutions in Developing Countries’ (USES) was set up on the understanding that such tensions, if they exist, can be transcended. It was funded by two organisations, the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the UK international development agency, Department for International Development.This paper analyses the USES research programme, looking at the processes of its establishment, partnership building, the research undertaken and its early impact. The paper shows that the USES programme goes beyond ‘normal’ pure versus applied, research versus policy and low‐tech versus high‐tech dualities. Instead, it throws up a complex series of issues that require attention if research is to lead to long standing and sustainable economic and social development.The paper suggests that the concept ‘liquid engineering’ might be a good way to conceptualise the ways in which the programme, without denying the tensions of dualistic realities, has moved towards a more fluid process to take account of its multiple and complex goals. The programme highlights that progress can be made towards engineering and development being accepted as a legitimate area of engineering theory and practice. © 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The paper aims to build understanding of the recent growth of interest in engineering for international development as an emerging focus of new knowledge, practice, and community development. In the paper, we create a borderlands approach to studying the activities referred to as engineering for development and development engineering. These activities take place in ‘borderland’ spaces where new approaches are being tried out through creative engagement of networks and communities willing to integrate social as well as technical knowledge and practice. We analyze four cases, selected as exemplars of engineering for development, from a large data set of case studies to demonstrate the socio-economic impact of research. We found evidence of important and original engineering, which showed paradigmatic shifts in engineering knowledge and practice. There was ambivalence inside the engineering community about engineering quality, mixing pride in the building of new paradigms with modesty about whether new knowledge and practices were ‘real’ engineering. These findings provide evidence that engineering aimed at global development offers an exciting new ‘borderlands’ approach to engineering that warrants further study.

This paper focuses on business models and value chains to analyse sectoral innovation systems involving synthetic biology and gene editing, as potentially disruptive platform technologies in the life sciences. In the context of industrial biotechnology, we propose that the extent to which an innovation is expected to be disruptive, and the location of that disruption in existing value chains, are relevant to policy decision making on how to govern innovative technologies. Policy decisions on how to regulate or support an innovative technology will be among the most important factors determining the extent to which it is able to deliver its disruptive potential, leading to sectoral transformations through new business models and value chains. This mode of thinking about disruption and innovation could be incorporated in standard procedures for policy makers to guide decisions designed to support translation from basic scientific research to societally useful products and processes.

We use the concept of ‘imagined communities’, and related work on socio-technical imaginaries and expectations, to reflect on how Scotland is represented simultaneously as ‘sick and unhealthy’ and a ‘living lab’ due to its innovative medical research. Together, we suggest these narratives have driven a broader health and wealth agenda in post-devolution Scotland, which became salient during the 2014 independence referendum. We draw on research conducted during the independence referendum to consider how key stakeholders enacted imagined communities/identities (sick but also innovative) as they considered the historical impact of devolution on health and research systems and envisioned future independence. The referendum provided an opportunity to consider how Scottish health and research systems have been imagined over time. Our findings further the understanding of the impact of devolution on healthcare and medical research, revealing the role played by policy narratives rooted in imagined identities.

In this paper, we investigate the implementation challenge of Smart Specialisation Strategies (S3) in catch-up regional environments, through the lens of capacity building. We analyse capacity building at two levels: micro-level (individual organisations) and meso-level (regional inter-organisational networks). We use empirical evidence from 50 interviews conducted in the period 2015–2017 from two Greek regions dramatically hit by the economic crisis (Crete and Central Macedonia). We argue that in the Cretan and Central Macedonian context, the difficulty of implementing S3 is directly linked with firms’ lack of adsorptive capability to exploit university-generated knowledge, university knowledge that is too abstract for firm’s to easily acquire, as well as to the capability of regional actors to build inter-organisational networking that fits their strategic needs.

Some emerging countries have made significant progress in developing local pharmaceutical and biotechnology but had less success in building medical device industries (MDIs). This paper explores the weak development of local MDIs by analysing the contrasting evolutionary trajectories of Indian healthcare technology sectors. The Indian pharmaceutical and biotechnological industries have emerged as leading global suppliers of generic drugs and vaccines, in marked contrast to the medical devices industry. This paper reveals that existence of a weak collaborative linkage between medical device manufacturers and the Indian health system, which largely lacks a systemic and cross-sectoral linkages, and weak communication between industry and government policy-makers have become a huge barrier to the development of the Indian MDI in the contemporary neo-liberal environment. The weak connection between technology and industrial policy and healthcare policy objectives has severely hampered both development of national technological capabilities and the creation of affordable health care.

The importance of science in development has been increasingly recognised in development discourses and policy since 2000. Engineering is less visible though engineering and engineers are important for the building and maintenance of transport, water, energy, industrial, informatics, urban and health systems. This article aims to investigate why engineering has not received more emphasis, including why development engineering has not been institutionalised like tropical medicine. It explores the nature of engineering in development, highlights recent efforts to headline engineering for development and, using analyses of what engineers know and do inside international development, suggests that its profile and effectiveness is emerging.