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Hall of Shoulders

Innovation

Christopher Freeman

Christopher Freeman is known for The national system of innovation (NSI) concept, the institutionalisation of innovation studies (founder of SPRU, University of Sussex), the long-wave / techno-economic paradigm framework (with Carlota Perez), the distinction between incremental and radical innovation, and the diffusion-and-institutions account of why nations catch up or fall behind.. A citation-grounded application of Freeman's economics of innovation to contemporary space challenges, for use as an adversarial review lens in the COLLEGIUM doctoral board.

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Review Lens

Adversarial questions for candidates

The falsifiable questions this brain puts to a dissertation candidate. They seed the pre-Conclave initial review whenever a candidate's topic matches the Innovation lens.

  1. 1

    What is the system, and where are its linkages? You attribute a space innovation to a firm or a founder. Specify the *national system of innovation* that produced it: the public research, procurement, finance, education, and user-producer linkages. The Triple-Helix evidence shows the US launch advantage is rooted in legislation, procurement, and enterprise-university collaboration (Liu 2024). Which linkage, if removed from your case, would have prevented the innovation — and how would you measure that?

  2. 2

    Catch-up or import? State the falsifiable capability test. Your case (e.g., China, or an emerging space nation) is "catching up." Freeman's distinction is between building indigenous *absorptive capability* and merely importing hardware. Provide an observable that would distinguish genuine capability accumulation (originating new combinations, forging ahead) from a state-financed imitation strategy that stalls in the "imitation trap" (Zhang 2025; Cimoli et al. 2021). If you cannot name the observable, your catch-up claim is untestable.

  3. 3

    Radical innovation, change of technology system, or techno-economic paradigm? You call the space sector a "revolution." Place it precisely in Freeman's four-level taxonomy. To claim a Perez-scale techno-economic paradigm you must identify a pervasive, cheap *key factor* that becomes common sense across the *whole* economy (Perez 2009), not merely a fast-growing sector (Bohnsack et al. 2021). Which is it, and what evidence distinguishes your answer from the alternative?

  4. 4

    Where is the structural crisis of adjustment in your case? Freeman and Perez predict the institutional framework lags the new technical potential. Identify the specific orbital-governance institutions (spectrum, debris, traffic, spaceport licensing) that have *not* caught up with the technology in your domain (e.g., DOI 10.1016/j.jsse.2026.02.012), and show whether your innovation's social productivity is gated by that lag. If you claim frictionless deployment, defend it against the structural-crisis prediction.

  5. 5

    What is the state actually doing — fixing markets or creating them? Freeman gives government a constitutive role; Mazzucato's mission-oriented framing requires market *co-creating and shaping*, not just *fixing* (Mazzucato 2018; Pina 2022). In your case, classify each public action as market-fixing versus market-creating, and defend whether your model under- or over-states the public contribution. If you treat the state only as a de-risker, justify the omission of its directional and demand-creating roles.

Core Concepts & Space Translation

The National System of Innovation (NSI)

Freeman's signature contribution: innovation performance is not a property of firms in isolation but of a *system* - "the network of institutions in the public and private sectors whose activities and interactions initiate, import, modify and diffuse new technologies." The relevant unit of analysis is the nation's interlocking web of firms, universities, government laboratories, financial institutions, education and training systems, and the user-producer linkages between them. Coined in *Technology Policy and Economic Performance: Lessons from Japan* (Freeman 1987), the concept explains why two countries with similar R&D spending get radically different innovation outputs: the difference is institutional architecture and the quality of the linkages, not the level of inputs. The NSI is the antidote to a purely firm-centric or purely market-centric view of technical change.

Space translation

See Space Applications below for how this framework translates to contemporary space governance, drawn directly from the dossier's applied-literature review.

Innovation as a systemic, interactive process (not a linear pipeline)

Freeman rejected the "linear model" (science → applied research → development → diffusion). He insisted innovation is *interactive*: feedback runs constantly between users and producers, between marketing and design, between basic research and shop-floor learning. Successful innovation depends on coupling - on the density and quality of communication channels across the system - far more than on any single input. This is why imported technology rarely produces catch-up unless the importer builds the indigenous *capability* to absorb, adapt, and improve it. Key work: *The Economics of Industrial Innovation* (Freeman 1974, later editions with Soete).

Space translation

See Space Applications below for how this framework translates to contemporary space governance, drawn directly from the dossier's applied-literature review.

Incremental vs radical innovation; technology systems and technological revolutions

Freeman built a taxonomy of innovation magnitude: (i) incremental innovations (continuous small improvements, the bulk of productivity growth), (ii) radical innovations (discontinuous, the seed of new industries), (iii) changes of technology system (clusters of innovations across several branches), and (iv) changes in the techno-economic paradigm - economy-wide transformations. Only by distinguishing these can one avoid mistaking a flood of incremental change for a revolution, or vice versa. Key work: Freeman & Perez, "Structural crises of adjustment" (1988).

Space translation

See Space Applications below for how this framework translates to contemporary space governance, drawn directly from the dossier's applied-literature review.

Techno-economic paradigms and long waves (with Carlota Perez)

Extending Schumpeter and Kondratiev, Freeman and Perez argued that economic long waves are driven by successive *techno-economic paradigms*: a constellation of interrelated technical and organisational innovations, organised around a cheap, pervasive "key factor" input, that becomes "common sense" for engineers, managers, and policymakers. The crises between waves are *structural crises of adjustment* - the social and institutional framework lags the new technical potential, and must be rebuilt before the new paradigm can deploy its full productivity. The diffusion of a paradigm, not its invention, is where the growth lives. Key work: Freeman & Louçã, *As Time Goes By* (2001); Perez, *Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital* (2002) and "Technological revolutions and techno-economic paradigms" (Perez 2009/2010, *Cambridge Journal of Economics*).

Space translation

See Space Applications below for how this framework translates to contemporary space governance, drawn directly from the dossier's applied-literature review.

Catching up, forging ahead, falling behind - capability and institutions

For Freeman, the dispersion of national growth rates is explained by differential capacity to *build the institutions* that absorb and exploit a new paradigm. Catch-up is never automatic technology transfer; it requires deliberate investment in human capital, in R&D, and in the social and financial institutions that channel learning. Japan and the East Asian "tigers" caught up by constructing strong NSIs; others stagnated despite access to the same technologies. The window of opportunity opens at paradigm shifts, when incumbents' advantages are temporarily devalued - but only the capable seize it. Key work: Freeman (1987); Freeman, "The 'National System of Innovation' in historical perspective" (1995, *Cambridge Journal of Economics*).

Space translation

See Space Applications below for how this framework translates to contemporary space governance, drawn directly from the dossier's applied-literature review.

The institutionalisation of innovation policy (mission orientation and the public role)

Freeman's NSI gives government a constitutive, not merely corrective, role: setting directions, funding basic and mission research, building training systems, and coordinating user-producer networks. This lineage runs directly to mission-oriented innovation policy (Mazzucato) and to the analysis of space and defence as paradigmatic public-mission innovation systems. Innovation policy is institution-building, not just market-failure patching. Key work: Freeman (1987); the lineage forward via Mazzucato, "Mission-oriented innovation policies" (2018). ---

Space translation

See Space Applications below for how this framework translates to contemporary space governance, drawn directly from the dossier's applied-literature review.