Exploring the coevolution of heterogeneous actors in national innovation systems: a system dynamics analysis of Finland

Adopting the ideas of co-evolving and interactive subsystems, we combine the national innovation systems (NISs) and “N-tuple innovation helices” conceptual frameworks and employ system dynamics (SD) to illustrate and examine the interdependencies and interactions between five intrinsically heterogeneous subsystems-helices: government, industry, academia, society, and finance. In this coevolutionary complex game, we consider that the intensity of spatial and temporal interactions within and between helices and the level of cooperation and coordination among them can explain the evolutionary trajectories of NISs. We use a causal loop diagram (CLD) to depict the interactions among various elements in NISs and a stock-and-flow diagram (SFD) to explore their emergent behavior. We concentrate on the Finnish case and validate the developed SD model by comparing simulation results with historical data from 2013 to 2017. Using simulation analysis, we further explore the emergent system behavior under various scenarios and policy mixes over the period 2023–2040. We experiment with different resource commitment mixes (e.g., business R&D expenditure, higher education R&D expenditure, government expenditure on tertiary education, venture capital investment) and changes in relatively “exogenous” factors (e.g., economic growth, rate of technical change) and further investigate the potential results in various parts of the SD model. Our framework may provide a powerful foresight tool for mapping NISs and multi-stakeholder participatory innovation policy-making for more resilient NISs.