Prometheus: Vol 34, No 3-4 (2016)


Editorial Editorial By Stuart Macdonald page: 171 - 172 Prometheus: Critical Studies in Innovation Volume 34, Issue 3-4 SKU: 0810-90281377996	More Info
Between innovation and industrial policy: how Washington succeeds and fails at renewable energy Paper By Robert MacNeil During its eight years in office, the Obama administration undertook an ambitious effort to transition the US economy towards the use of renewable energy technologies, and promote American leads in the global ‘cleantech’ industry. While many of the strategies selected to achieve these goals rendered positive results, others proved unproductive and/or politically toxic. Approaching the issue from a critical innovation framework (which focuses on the political and economic conditions under which the federal government is best able to promote technological change), this paper argues that the administration ignored some of the key conditions that have historically allowed Washington to succeed in promoting the uptake of new technologies. The paper describes the nature of these mistakes, and suggests an alternative way forward based on historical precedent. page: 173 - 189 Prometheus: Critical Studies in Innovation Volume 34, Issue 3-4 SKU: 0810-90281323746	More Info
Materiality and sustainability transitions: integrating climate change in transport infrastructure in Ontario, Canada Paper By Kean Birch Infrastructure threatens to lock-in societies to fossil fuels unless something is done now. This is because infrastructure lasts for such a long time, meaning that any infrastructure built or rebuilt now will last well into the twenty-first century – until the end of the century, in some cases. Consequently, there is a need to integrate climate change into infrastructure now or societies will be left with infrastructure designed around unsustainable socio-technical systems (such as combustion engines, roads, and suburbanization). Such change is conceptualized in the literature as a sustainability transition. However, any attempts at such transitions have to address the ‘materialities’ of infrastructure systems (physical form, environmental context, and so on). In this paper, I develop the concept of ‘socio-material systems’ and apply it to transport infrastructure in Ontario, Canada. page: 191 - 206 Prometheus: Critical Studies in Innovation Volume 34, Issue 3-4 SKU: 0810-90281331612	More Info
Data sharing in low-resourced research environments Paper By Brian Rappert ‘Open data’ has recently emerged as a label for renewed attempts to promote scientific exchange. As part of such efforts, the posting of data online is often portrayed as commonly beneficial: individual scientists accrue greater prominence while at the same time fostering communal knowledge. Yet, how scientists in non-Western research settings assess such calls for openness has been the subject of little empirical study. Based on extended fieldwork with biochemistry laboratories in sub-Sahara Africa, this paper examines a variety of reasons why scientists opt for closure over openness with regard to their own data. We argue that the heterogeneity of research environments calls into question many of the presumptions made as part of open data. Inequalities in research environments can mean that moves towards sharing create binds and dilemmas. These observations suggest that those promoting openness must critically examine current research governance and funding systems that continue to perpetuate disparities. The paper proposes an innovative approach to facilitating openness: coupling the sharing of data with enabling scientists to redress their day-to-day research environment demands. Such a starting basis provides an alternative but vital link between the aspirations for science aired today as part of international discussions and the daily challenges of undertaking research in low-resourced environments. page: 207 - 224 Prometheus: Critical Studies in Innovation Volume 34, Issue 3-4 SKU: 0810-90281325142	More Info
The challenge of film to innovation and entrepreneurship studies Paper By Martin Wood This commentary supplements the work of a creative practice research project that generates new ways of thinking about innovation and entrepreneurial processes. Our creative method, underwritten by the logic of sensation and presented in film format, operates as an alternative form of research in these fields, where results are normally conveyed in book or journal paper. Film-based research has developed distinctive qualitative, empirical and theoretical vocabularies that can expand the nature and range of evidence, argument and expression across the broad range of innovation and entrepreneurship studies. 600 Mills, the film that accompanies this paper, is available at . page: 225 - 230 Prometheus: Critical Studies in Innovation Volume 34, Issue 3-4 SKU: 0810-90281336011	More Info
The econocracy: the perils of leaving economics to the experts Book Review By G. M. Peter Swann page: 231 - 249 Prometheus: Critical Studies in Innovation Volume 34, Issue 3-4 SKU: 0810-90281339523	More Info
Public debate in Russia: matters of disorder Book Review By Nigel Holden page: 251 - 254 Prometheus: Critical Studies in Innovation Volume 34, Issue 3-4 SKU: 0810-90281339525	More Info
Leadership BS: fixing workplaces and careers one truth at a time Book Review By Richard Joseph page: 255 - 257 Prometheus: Critical Studies in Innovation Volume 34, Issue 3-4 SKU: 0810-90281355151	More Info
Public universities, managerialism and the value of higher education Book Review By Margaret Thornton page: 257 - 260 Prometheus: Critical Studies in Innovation Volume 34, Issue 3-4 SKU: 0810-90281341676	More Info
Patent pledges: global perspectives on patent law’s private ordering frontier Book Review By William Kingston page: 260 - 263 Prometheus: Critical Studies in Innovation Volume 34, Issue 3-4 SKU: 0810-90281362820	More Info
Innovating: a doer’s manifesto Book Review By Boru Douthwaite page: 264 - 266 Prometheus: Critical Studies in Innovation Volume 34, Issue 3-4 SKU: 0810-90281377995	More Info