How do systemic instruments shape technologic innovation system dynamics?

The need for challenge-led innovation policies to address grand societal challenges is increasingly recognised at various policy levels. A key-line of research has emerged on the role of systemic failures in the development of Technological Innovation Systems. Most recent work, introducing the notion of ‘transformational failures’, has combined this rationale with the work on multi-level approaches to sustainability transitions. This literature, so far, has failed to explore how different kinds of policies can overcome transformational failures. This paper uses a system dynamics model to explore relations between transformational failures and policy interventions, and the ways in which they influence the development of TIS in various transitions contexts. The main conclusion is that, in particular in the case where TIS is in a competitive relation with the regime, overcoming reflexivity failures are critically important – here modelled as a reduction of regime resistance in combination with increasing the legitimacy of an emerging TIS.