Innovation for inclusive development in Southeast Asia: the roles of regional coordination mechanisms

Abstract

In the past, studies on inclusive development involve mainly the perspective of equitable distribution of economic and societal outputs. This study, however, takes a different approach and analyses the potential roles of regional coordination mechanisms (RCMs), specifically universities and research council's networks within Southeast Asia, in disseminating the innovation-related activities for inclusive development or Innovation for Inclusive Development (IID). The literature on innovation intermediaries within the realm of innovation systems studies was used to establish the framework of the study. The findings indicate that RCMs have a huge potential role to play. However, due to a number of reasons, including lack of funding support, lack of attention and commitment to IID, weak engagement with industry and non-governmental organisations, the implementation of the IID activities was rather poor. As a whole, the study argues that current approaches are not well positioned and it is fragmented preventing the effective use of RCMs despite their potentials for IID efforts. The study attributes this to the systemic failures in the regional coordinating systems. In enhancing the role of RCMs in IID, this study recommends the promotion of IID platform, the leveraging of non-government organisations and industry as well as energising the Southeast Asia engagement in promoting IID.

Keywords:

• Inclusive development
• grass-roots innovation
• intermediaries
• social inclusion
• ASEAN

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank all interviewees and organisations for sharing their views and experiences. This research was commissioned by the Universities and Councils Network on Innovation for Inclusive Development in Southeast Asia (UNIID-SEA), a partnership project of the School of Government of the Ateneo de Manila University (AdMU), and the National Research Council of the Philippines (NRCP).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Note

Notes

1. In this paper, universities, research councils and the RCMs are referred as any type of formal and informal physical and virtual platforms that facilitate the process of dissemination of research outcomes from universities and research councils to the society. These include secretariats, conferences, seminars, forums, industry and community engagement projects, funds providers and others who shape the nature and extent of human interaction at the cross-national levels. In this paper, RCMs may not necessarily be initiated and operated from within Southeast Asia, but may also be platforms hosted outside the Southeast Asia in which their services are made available to the communities.

Additional information

Funding

The research was supported by Canada's International Development Research Centre (IDRC) [grant number 106324-001].