Tackling Global Challenges Through Mission Oriented Innovation

Politics fractures when policy fails - as events of the last year have shown. Nine years on from the global financial crisis, policymakers are still struggling to find convincing answers to the economic problems it exposed. At the same time, the world faces many significant and complex challenges, from climate change to the problems of managing chronic health conditions, to the challenges of ageing populations, to meeting the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. If innovation is part of the answer, how can public policy be used to steer it towards tackling these kinds of global problems? This special event marks the launch of a new collaboration between the RSA and UCL’s new Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose to develop mission-oriented innovation policy in practice. Chaired by the RSA’s director of innovation Rowan Conway, the event will consist of provocations and conversation between IIPP's founder and director Mariana Mazzucato, Professor in the Economics of Innovation and Public Value, UCL (from 1 March, 2017); Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute and Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development, Columbia University; and Carlota Perez, Professor of Technology and Development, London School of Economics. Reflecting on lessons from previous attempts at mission-oriented policies, our panel will consider: why leaving innovation to the market is not enough; the role of public policy in setting directions for growth; opportunities to use mission-oriented innovation to tackle 'green' growth; and how mission-oriented policies can be the practical means for meeting the Sustainable Development Goals.