The importance of innovation as a driver of economic growth and fostering competitiveness is widely accepted by the international economic development community.  The World Bank identifies innovation as one of the four key pillars of a knowledge economy.  The World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Global Competitiveness Report includes innovation as its 12th pillar of competitiveness and shows innovation-driven economies as the highest of three levels of economic development, after factor-driven and efficiency-driven.  What differentiates innovation is the fact that all other factors of competitiveness eventually run into the issue of diminishing returns and “in the long run, standards of living can be expanded only with technological innovation.” 

While part of innovation is creative: inventing new technologies and processes, in many developing countries, it is also adaptive: adopting new technologies and processes that already exist elsewhere but are new to the domestic market.  For innovation to thrive, it is necessary to have a shift in the mindset of society in general so that there becomes increased acceptance of risk and failure and an interest and social value placed on creating and adopting new ideas and changing the status quo.

While much of the burden of innovation relies on academia and the private sector, there is still much that the public sector can do to incentivize the widespread adoption of an innovative mindset and processes.  The government should adopt a comprehensive innovation policy that includes concerted efforts for institutional, financial, technical and regulatory assistance. 
Innovation is a key driver of competitiveness and economic growth but remains absent from the general discourse in Pakistan.  Moreover, there is no comprehensive policy or strategy to assist the government in collaborating with academia and the private sector to foster innovation across the country.  CSF is working to give innovation its rightful prominence and chose it as the theme of the State of Pakistan’s Competitiveness Report (SPCR) for 2009. 

Towards a National Innovation Strategy

The Innovation Strategy Working Group or the (I-SWOG) was formed on the triple helix approach and had representation from the Government, Academia as well as the Private Sector. The I-SWOG was chaired by Dr. Sohail Naqvi, Executive Director of the Higher Education Commission (HEC). The deliberations of the I-SWOG resulted in the identification of the 12 pillars of Innovation and other Pakistan specific issues related to Innovation.

The conclusions of the I-SWOG were built upon through a series of workshops which were aimed at enabling the stakeholders in Pakistan’s Innovation Eco-system to deliberate on the issues surrounding Innovation in Pakistan. These workshops were assisted by Dr. Lars Eklund, a former Director at the Swedish Innovation Agency (VINNOVA). The conclusions from the first workshop at Karachi, enabled to draft an Innovation Strategy.

Currently the Draft Strategy is going through a process of up gradation, for which input is being taken from stakeholders. The Lahore Workshop aimed to refine the Draft Strategy along with gathering more input for the document. After the Lahore workshop, a working group was formed to finalize the Draft Strategy and make it more applicable to Pakistan’s economic realities.