To achieve more desirable futures, we need to completely overhaul our current production, consumption, and innovation systems, requiring practices that go beyond merely understanding these systems and their problems. While the necessity for systemic changes to address grand societal challenges is widely supported across diverse schools of thought, systems innovation faces two significant limitations. First, many approaches to systems innovation focus primarily on understanding and mapping systems, seldom enabling robust change towards achieving desirable futures. Second, and relatedly, the literature on systems innovation (SI) is fragmented and built upon different fields with contradictory ontological assumptions—some suggest changes can be strategically planned and managed, while others fundamentally reject this notion. This fragmentation and these ontological contradictions hinder robust actions towards desirable futures by increasing the divide across disciplines, antagonizing the very core principles of system innovation that demand transdisciplinarity. Therefore, the central research question of this paper is: How can the integration and alignment of diverse approaches within systems innovation overcome current limitations and better support the transition towards desirable futures?
In this paper, we argue that the conceptualization of ‘systems innovation’ stems from three distinct approaches that have largely remained unconnected: 1) Research and innovation approaches, 2) Systems thinking approaches, and 3) Societal transition approaches. This paper aims to bring conceptual clarity by offering a comprehensive overview of these fields ultimately arriving at a re-conceptualization of systems innovation. While these different fields have largely developed independently, we find that their alignment facilitates a more cohesive and effective re-conceptualization of ‘systems innovation’.