Gonzalo Ordóñez Matamoros, STePS, and others published a Special Issue of the ‘Review of Policy Research’ on ‘Innovation, Innovation Policy, and Social Inclusion in Developing Countries’. (Wiley, November 2012, volume 29, issue 6)
Please find below a brief description of the content of this special issue, and link to the journal:
“Claims for a more responsive innovation policy to address longstanding problems affecting the most vulnerable population in developing countries are on the rise. In many of them, economic growth coexists with increasing inequality, where technological innovation can be linked to increasing social exclusion. Historically, the mainstream approach to innovation policies has placed the emphasis on research and development. But increasingly it is acknowledged that innovation goes far beyond the formal R&D, and that tacit knowledge, experience, and learning capabilities are enormously valuable, particularly when considering the characteristics of developing countries. As a consequence, policymakers are blamed for not paying enough attention to what knowledge and technology entails and has to offer, and on the ways it could be exploited and governed in order to improve the conditions of the poor.
This special issue intends to explore and fuel current debate on the role technological innovation as well as social innovation is playing or could play in fostering social inclusion, the alleviation of poverty and the reduction of inequality in these countries. The set of six conceptual and empirical narratives presented in this special issue focuses in one way or another on this claim, pointing to the need of new institutional arrangements to advance in the path towards social inclusion, either by broadening the scope of innovation policies to include social innovation, or by encouraging the expansion of the research agendas to foster technological innovation to address the needs of the poor in a more participative way.”
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1541-1338