Mapping Research & Innovation Missions

Abstract

Mission-oriented innovation policies are being increasingly recognised as a promising strategy to steer innovation in societally desirable directions and encourage the formation of new disciplines and industries. We argue that developing a suitable evidence base for these policies requires the use of new data sources and data science methods able to capture emergence, diffusion, crossover and diversity. We deploy these methods to create prototype indicators about the UK Government Grand Challenge to ‘Use data, Artificial Intelligence and innovation to transform the prevention, early diagnosis and treatment of chronic diseases by 2030‘. Our findings demonstrate the potential of open data sources and data science methods for informing R&I policies increasingly concerned about the direction and purpose of technological change, as well as its rate.

Keywords: innovation policy, innovation indicators, artificial intelligence

JEL Classification: L53, O33