This paper asks what insights the literature provides on divergence versus convergence of innovation paths in Europe and Asia. It contrasts the abundant literature on determinants of innovation paths with the scarcity of studies that are explicitly comparative across countries or continents. Implicit conclusions however emerge from several lines of work including evolutionary perspectives which stress differences in national conditions, and other perspectives which stress latecomer and globalisation effects. This paper distils and draws together the main conclusions on why innovation paths can be expected to diverge or converge. Its contribution lies in spelling out and bringing together implicit and explicit insights from a wide range of literatures. It also provides an analytical backdrop for some of the other papers in this special issue of Science and Public Policy which provide comparative empirical analyses of low carbon innovation paths.
Globally, new forms of electromobility are challenging established transport technologies based on internal combustion engines.
This paper presents three individual cases of a wind turbine producer, a wind farm and a wind blade producer to illustrate how foreign collaboration and technology, choice of deployment strategy, and government policy have influenced the sector to continually improve its technology.
As a global agreement on climate mitigation and absolute emissions reductions remains grid-locked, this paper assesses whether the prospects for international technology cooperation in low-carbon sectors can be improved.
This Discussion Paper presents a normative concept of green industrial policy, which is defined as encompassing any policy measure aimed at aligning the structure of a country’s economy with the needs of sustainable development within established planetary boundaries.