Admission Requirements
60 ECTS in environmental or social science

Learning Outcomes
Learning outcomes
Upon completion of the course, the student is able to:

analyse and explain the relationship between innovation, inclusion and sustainable development under different economic, ecological and social conditions,
analyse innovation and developmental factors, changes and processes from different theoretical perspectives
explain which, why and how policies in different sectors may impact innovation capacity in low or middle income countries
analyse the elements and linkages in innovation systems in a particular country or region, or for a specific technology or social innovation
identify differences, complexities and challenges in global, regional and local innovation systems
critically review how policies for innovation, entrepreneurship and education are linked to a society’s ecological, environmental, political, economic and societal conditions
problematise cultural factors that are important in the adoption and adaptation of external innovations
independently produce summaries of scientifically reviewed literature in innovation and development, as well as present scholarly material both orally and in writing
evaluate the importance of the quality, validity and relevance of official and international innovation indicators and critically review their applicability to the global goals for sustainable development
critically discuss the societal debate about knowledge and technology transfer, and evaluate the role of learning in development processes
develop a critical approach to ethical issues in development of science, technology and innovation from the perspectives of justice, gender and sustainability

Programme
The course is divided into modules covering two weeks each. In each module we cover a topic necessary to understand the linkages between innovation and sustainable development. To provide a theoretical background, each module includes mandatory readings of text selected to provide a common ground for all of us. In addition you get an opportunity to select at least two articles related to your own interest. You may select articles from a proposed reading list or you may do your own search at Söder scholar or your preferred database. You may test your understanding of the mandatory reading in quizzes linked to each module. Taking the quizzes is one of the way to get in to the vocabulary and concepts, and it is useful in preparations for the home exam that you need to do by the end of the course.
To help you get into and elaborating your project work, each module provide assignments and exercises. The assignments are mandatory and necessary for the seminar discussions. The exercises provide you with tools for doing the analysis, and using them are mandatory.
Below you find an outline of the course.
• Module week 1-2. During these two weeks students familiarize with the Canvas /studyweb, the course contents and the means of communication they get access to. Students start thinking of what innovation they would like to analyze. There are some tasks for students to fulfill:
o Submit a presentation of themselves and their expectations on the course
o Choose a preferred seminar time
o Read about the project work in the project manual
o Read the mandatory articles in the reading list and respond to the quiz
o Send us some ideas about your project
• In the module week 3-4 you will dive into the debate on sustainability. The course uses a pragmatic approach that takes its point of departure in the UN2030 Agenda "Transforming our World", which we encourage students to get familiar with. This document guides the sustainability efforts of most public, private or civic organizations. However, being a negotiated document, where various nations and organizations had a say and had to agree on the content, the 2030 Agenda might not be the optimal instrument in all regards. There are strengths, weaknesses and contradictions inherent in the document. To make it easier to capture how these flaws may be understood the course provides mandatory reading and with a list of articles to select from according to the students preferred approach. They need to select at least two articles and be prepared at the seminar to contribute with thoughts on the contents.
Students write notes in assignments connected to the reading. The notes they write serves understanding of what aspects or approaches to sustainability that are valuable for their project and the final write-up of the project paper. Further, there are two exercises on how to deal with the multiple Sustainability goals in the context of the innovation you selected to study.
• In the module week 5-6 we are looking into the concept of innovation. Again, taking an official document as a point of departure, studnets look into the OECD Oslo Manual. This manual is important because it provides the ways for governments to collect statistics on innovation. These statistics are then monitored by the OECD to indicate the competitiveness of nations. Students then read about alternative approaches to look at innovations as a foundation to discussions on how we could define the concept better in relation to sustainable development (The original OECD approach is mostly geared towards economic growth, and for sustainability we need something more). Studnet will look into what theories says about how innovations are diffused, that is how the spread over societies and get attractive to more users.
The assignment is to pick up concepts and approaches from the reading that would be useful to define the contribution the selected innovation could make to sustainability. The notes made in this assignment will serve as an input to the final write up of the project paper.
• In the module week 7-8 we are looking into the concept innovation systems. In short, innovation systems are the setup of various actors, policies, funding opportunities, knowledge, etc that are needed to bring an idea (something possibly useful) to become an innovation (something new put into use). One useful, basic definition is that "an innovation system is a focal device". Students will read about various types of innovation systems, such as national, sectoral , regional or technological, all dependent on what the authors are aiming to describe. They will read about ideas to make the complexity simpler with ideas such as the Triple Helix that defines the innovation system as the collaboration between a main typical actors, academia, business and government. And then to make that simplification a bit more complex students will read about the Quadruple and Quintuple helixes that first brings in media and civil society and then also add the interaction with humans and non-human entities into the system. This means that students will have to add socio-ecological systems and socio-technological systems into the thinking about how innovations can be put into use for sustainability.
The assignment will be to think of the innovation system that makes it possible for the selected innovation to move from idea to diffusion and use. There will be three exercises demonstrating methods for mapping of innovation systems.
• In module week 9-10 we are extending our view from the theories on innovation system to socio-ecological and socio-technological systems. This gives us various opportunities. We get a basic understanding of how evolutionary economists think of technology more as evolving than being developed and we get acquainted with the concept of path dependency. We can look closer at the quintuple helix through ideas presented in theories on socio-ecological systems. And we get closer to the enigma of how social and technological innovations are connected by looking at the theories on socio-technological development. All in all, this gives us a chance to understand innovations as part of innovation systems that are part of larger systems.
The assignment will be to put the innovation you are studying into the context of socio-technological and socio-ecological systems - what kind of dependencies can you see? What kind of opportunities or "cracks in the wall"?
• In module week 11-12 we are looking closer at how knowledges for innovation develop, using the perspectives of situated knowledge on the triple and quadruple helix actors (academia, business, government and civil society). As points of departure were combine the perspectives from Bengt Åke Lundvall on Learning and Donna Haraway on situated knowledge. We look at debates on how academic traditions might have to change, and the role of learning in firms and in civil society organizations. The TIS function "Knowledge development" is open to who, when and where knowledge is developed and from the module we hope you would gain an understanding on how knowledges contribute to the innovation you are studying.
• In module 13-14 we are looking into ideas of democratizing innovation. Taking Eric von Hippels writings on user driven innovation as one point of departure we look into ideas about social entrepreneurship and grassroot innovation, as well as other ways of involving citizens in the innovation processes. We look deeper into the concept of innovation diffusion and on how to get public acceptance and increasing uptake of innovations.
• In module week 15-16 we are connecting the dots between sustainability, knowledges, innovation, innovation systems and the wider system context. We will dig deeper into the challenges that are previous reading and the current situation are confronting us with. In our seminar discussions we address issues that have emerged during the course and prepare for the final write up.

References
Not complete

Teaching Methodology
The teaching method is video lectures and detailed reading instructions followed by a seminar where the students present their notes on useful parts of the literature to their rojects. In the seminars they are also presenting the progress of their thinking and investigations related to the project work.

Language of the Curriculum and Course
English

ECTS Credits
15 ECTS part time September to January

Examination Methodology
Assessment of project work and home exam

Relevance
The course is dealing with system approaches to innovations and sustainable development to deal with the complex issues of meeting the requirements put out in the 2030 Agenda.
The course is designed for third year students at bachelors level, but more than half of the students during the 3 years the course has been run have been life-long learners, many of the with a completed masters degree. The course can be easily adapted to fit both within a bachelors degree or a masters program.