Fred Steward, Professor of Innovation and Sustainability, Policy Studies Institute, University of Westminster, will be giving an inaugural lecture.

Significant innovation is essential to achieving a successful transition to a low carbon society. Yet there are widely differing concepts of innovation, with a bewildering profusion of retrospective analogies of radical change. Some are technological calls for green versions of the ‘Manhattan Project’ or ‘Apollo Programme’. Others are social or moral appeals for a green ‘New Deal’. This diversity represents the complexity of the climate change challenge but it also reveals contrasting and often confused ideas of innovation itself. Professor Fred Steward argues that for innovation policy to make a real difference it needs a narrative which is more reflective on past experience.

The lecture draws on new thinking about innovation in relation to delivery of transformative change and its relevance for a wide diversity of policy actors in the political debates of 2010.

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