In January 2025, a new article was published under the title “Functional Public Procurement and Innovation – A Conceptual Framework”. The authors are Charles Edquist and Geo Quinot. The article can be downloaded here. The abstract of the article is as follows: Abstract The literature on the relationship between public procurement and innovation has been … Continue reading
Category Archives: Article
From the Systems of Innovation Approach to a General Theory of Innovation: Do Activities and Functions Reflect what Happens in Innovation Systems?
Abstract: ‘The system of innovation approach’ has been around in innovation research for more than three decades. In this paper, we ask whether the time has come to try to develop a general theory of innovation. There is now a considerable literature addressing what happens in the innovation systems (and not only which elements and … Continue reading
Functional Public Procurement and Innovation – the Concepts
Update: This is now published as a working paper at CIRCLE. Click here to go directly to the paper. The literature on the relations between public procurement and innovation has been growing rapidly during the latest couple of decades. However, there are still conceptual problems and unclarities with regard to key concepts. The purpose of … Continue reading
New article: Towards a Holistic User Innovation Policy
Lars Bengtsson’s and Charles’ article “Towards a Holistic User Innovation Policy” has now been published in the International Journal of Innovation Studies last February 7th, 2022. The abstract reads: This paper aims to synthesize previous user innovation policy proposals into an adapted systems of innovation framework, on which a future holistic user innovation policy for the household sector can be based. We do this in three … Continue reading
“Functional procurement for innovation, welfare, and the environment” now published in Science and Public Policy
The earlier CIRCLE Discussion Paper entitled “Functional procurement for innovation, welfare, and the environment” (see below) written with Jon Mikel Zabala-Iturriagagoitia was published in Science and Public Policy in December 2020. The abstract of the paper reads as follows: Public procurement accounts for a very large share of most economies worldwide. This article argues that … Continue reading
Towards a holistic innovation policy: Can the Swedish National Innovation Council (NIC) be a role model?
Charles’ article Towards a holistic innovation policy: Can the Swedish National Innovation Council (NIC) be a role model? was published by Research Policy: Volume 48, Issue 4, May 2019. Continue reading
Eu-SPRI 2018
On June 7 – 8 Charles was scheduled to participate in the EU-SPRI 2018 Conference in Paris, entitled “Governance and relevance: Towards a new generation of research and innovation policies”. However, because of problems with flights, he did not reach Paris. But his co-authors presented two joint papers. Susana Borrás presented a paper entitled “Theoretical … Continue reading
Pre-commercial procurement: A demand or supply policy instrument in relation to innovation?
Charles Edquist’s and J. M. Zabala-Iturriagagoitia’s article, Pre-commercial procurement: a demand or supply policy instrument in relation to innovation? is now published in the current issue of R&D Management. Abstract: In 2006, the European Commission introduced the concept of ‘pre-commercial procurement’ (PCP) as an instrument to promote innovation and to mitigate grand challenges. One of … Continue reading
Charles Edquist 