Innovation ecosystems cannot be built by decree
Why do we keep using linear tools for non-linear challenges? In Handbook of Innovation Ecosystems, John H. Howard unpacks this contradiction. The Australian expert in innovation policy delivers a sharp, experience-based framework for understanding — and strengthening — how innovation actually happens.
Bonjour John Howard, why did you write this book… now?
John Howard : I wrote The Handbook of Innovation Ecosystems because the term is everywhere, but the understanding is often thin. Over the past decade I have watched governments, universities, and city leaders talk confidently about ecosystems while still relying on linear policy tools, sectoral programs, and structural fixes that do not match how innovation actually works.
The timing matters because the pressures are mounting. Climate transition, artificial intelligence, demographic change, and geopolitical tension are all colliding. These challenges cut across institutions and jurisdictions, and they expose the limits of traditional innovation policy. The book is my attempt to step back, make sense of what we have learned internationally, and offer a practical way of thinking about innovation as a system that evolves over time and place.
An extract from your book that best represents yourself?
J.H.: Rather than a single extract, it is the argument that innovation ecosystems cannot be built by decree. They cannot be copied, and they cannot be managed like organisations. They depend on capability, trust, and sustained effort.
That idea reflects my own career. I have spent much of my working life sitting between policy ambition and delivery reality. The book reflects that experience. It is concerned less with slogans and more with what actually makes systems function, adapt, and endure.
The trends that are just emerging and that you believe in the most?
J.H.: One is a quiet shift from competition to coordination. Many innovation challenges now require collaboration across firms, sectors, and levels of government.
Another is the growing importance of organisations that act as connectors or system integrators. They help align interests and capabilities without trying to control outcomes.
The third is renewed attention to delivery. After years of strategy documents and vision statements, there is a rediscovery that operational skill, institutional memory, and learning by doing matter greatly.
If you had to give one piece of advice to a reader of this article, what would it be?
J.H.: Resist the temptation to copy what appears to work elsewhere. Innovation ecosystems are deeply shaped by history, institutions, and culture.
The more useful question is how to strengthen capabilities and relationships where you are, rather than importing models shaped under very different conditions.
In a nutshell, what are the next topics that you will be passionate about?
J.H.: I am increasingly interested in systems integration as a missing discipline in innovation policy and management.
I am also focusing on the evolving role of universities as civic and economic anchors, beyond their formal teaching and research missions.
Finally, I am exploring how artificial intelligence challenges public administration, particularly how governments can build capability and legitimacy at the same time.
Thanks John Howard
Thank you Bertrand Jouvenot