How Can Platforms Ecosystems Support Mission-Specific Innovation Systems?

Abstract

The recent uptake of transformative mission-oriented innovation policies introduces novel demands on innovation systems. Scholars suggest that platform ecosystems could help meet these new demands, but how this may be done remains unexplored and unspecified. This is problematic because policymakers already develop and deploy such resource-intensive platforms. To address this gap, this paper conceptualizes how platform ecosystems can be employed to support mis-sion-specific innovation systems. We argue that plat-forms can cover a range of system functions, including the provision of problem/solution directionality, coordination of the transition, and market creation. We animate our conceptualization through an illustrative vignette of the NetZeroCities platform and provide urgent avenues for future research that would yield a better understanding of mission-oriented platform ecosystems.