Discipline and institutional issues
Innovation governance is the study and practice of how societies steer the development, testing and adoption of new technologies and new ways of working. It draws on innovation economics, science and technology studies, public administration, law and evaluation. Its central institutional issues are who carries the risk of experimentation, how learning is captured and shared, and how public purpose is kept in view when commercial incentives dominate. This page sets out the field and why it matters.
- Publisher
- The Global Risks Forum
- Field
- Innovation, Artificial intelligence, Industry and robotics
- Status
- Established
- Service level
- R0: information and enquiries
Convening networkThe Consortium Secretariat's links to the six programme regions. Illustrative coverage, not venues or commitments.
- STEM methods
- 3
- Canonical methods this field applies
- Topics
- 8
- Subject pages in the field
- Counterparts
- 7
- Platforms in shared fields at GCRI, GRF and GRA
- Report series
- 1
- Nexus Reports series it contributes to
The short answer.
The Innovation Nexus field covers governed public-interest innovation and cross-sector technology cooperation oriented to demonstrable learning. Experts in it study questions such as responsible innovation and innovation ecosystems, with methods such as policy, institutional and decision science as well as artificial intelligence and machine learning. Its counterparts at GCRI and GRA look at the same systems through science and finance.
One field, three institutions.
Fig.How GCRI, GRF and GRA share one field while the authorities decide. Design, not a record.
Field overview, in outline.
The working screen behind this subject: its structure, terms and states. Names are placeholders and values illustrative.
The rate of change outpaces the institutions that govern it.
Technologies such as artificial intelligence, gene editing, robotics and quantum computing reach markets faster than legislatures and regulators can adapt. Public bodies are expected both to use innovation to improve services and to protect citizens from its harms, often without the skills or mandate to do either well. When governance lags, harms spread before they are understood; when it overreaches, useful innovation stalls or moves elsewhere.
Innovation is also unevenly distributed. Capability concentrates in particular regions, firms and countries, and the benefits and costs of technological change fall unequally across society. These are governance questions, not only market outcomes.
The questions the discipline works on.
- 01
Purpose and accountability
How public purpose, safeguards and accountability are built into innovation. See responsible innovation and public interest innovation.
- 02
Systems and diffusion
How ecosystems, regions and transfer mechanisms spread capability. See innovation ecosystems, regional innovation systems and technology transfer.
- 03
Learning under uncertainty
How pilots, sandboxes and evaluation produce evidence. See experimental governance.
- 04
Distribution and frontier
Who gains and who bears risk, and how frontier technologies cross sectors. See innovation and society and frontier technology governance.
How innovation governance touches other fields.
Innovation governance depends on the science of the technologies themselves, studied at The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI) on platforms such as Artificial Intelligence and Autonomous Systems and Nexus Labs, and on how capital flows, studied at The Global Risks Alliance (GRA) on Private Equity Nexus. Within The Global Risks Forum (GRF), it connects to Policy Nexus and AI and Digital Governance. Responsibility for decisions is mapped on decision-rights context.
Terms used on this page.
Each term as this page uses it. Where a standard-setting body defines the term, the wording follows that body.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Regulatory sandbox | A supervised framework in which innovations are tested under a regulator's oversight with defined conditions. |
| Mission-oriented innovation policy | Public policy that sets a societal goal and mobilises research and several sectors to reach it. |
| Innovation governance | The rules, institutions and processes that steer the direction, pace and distribution of innovation. |
| Systemic risk | Risk arising from interconnections, where failure in one part can cascade through a whole system. |
What analysis rests on.
The discipline uses policy, institutional and decision science, systems engineering for complex programmes and artificial intelligence both as a subject and as an analytical tool. Methods and their limits are set out on methods and uncertainty.
Pages in Discipline and institutional issues.
Questions and answers.
Is innovation governance the same as regulation?
Why does a risk forum work on innovation?
Which methods does the field rely on?
Around Innovation Nexus.
Bring your expertise to this field.
The current service level is R0: information and enquiries. An enquiry receives a reference and names the next step; applications, payments, compute allocations and registrations open only when their team, terms and review capacity exist.