Inclusive Innovation: Evidence and Options in Rural India

This book discusses the role of inclusive innovation for development in rural India. It uses the evidence of innovation in the context of skewed or limited livelihood options and multiple knowledge systems to argue that if inclusive innovation is to happen, the actors and the nature of the innovation system need reform. The book presents cases of substantive technological changes and institutional reforms enabling inclusive innovation in rural manufacturing, sustainable agriculture, health services, and the processes of technological learning in traditional informal networks, as well as in formal modern commodity markets. These cases offer lessons to enable learning and change within the state and formal science and technology (S&T) organizations. By focusing on these actors central to development economics and innovation systems framework, the book bridges the widening conceptual gaps between these two parallel knowledge domains, and offers options for action by several actors to enable inclusive innovation systems. The content is thus of value to a wide audience consisting of researchers, policy makers, NGOs and industry observers.

Rajeswari S. Raina is a Professor at Shiv Nadar University’s School of Humanities and Social Sciences (SHSS), Department of International Relations and Governance Studies, and Associate Director of the University’s Centre for Public Affairs and Critical Theory (C-PACT). With a background in the agricultural sciences and the social sciences (Ph.D., Economics from Kerala University, through the Centre for Development Studies, Trivandrum), her research explores the complex relationships between development policy and knowledge—formal scientific and diverse informal knowledge systems. Her research questions have been mainly in the social studies of science, innovation systems and policies and institutional learning capacities, specifically in the agricultural and rural sectors, and the environment in India and Asia. Individually and in collaboration with networks of actors in the government, civil society and environmental organizations, farming communities and international agencies, her current research focuses on the knowledge politics of and institutional reform for (a) poverty relevant science, technology and innovation, (b) ecological and bio-economic wellbeing, and (c) sustainable agriculture–environment–nutrition interfaces and state nutrition programmes. Well published in internationally refereed journals, edited and co-authored books, several domestic and international task force and working group reports, her edited books are Science, Technology and Development in India: Encountering Values (Orient BlackSwan 2015), and (co-edited with Julien-Francois Gerber) Post-growth Thinking in India (Orient BlackSwan, 2018).

 Keshab Das is a Professor at the Gujarat Institute of Development Research, Ahmedabad, India. He holds M.Phil. (Applied Economics) and Ph.D. (Economics) degrees from the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi (through the Centre for Development Studies, Trivandrum). He also holds a bachelor’s degree in Journalism and Mass Communications. He is a recipient of the VKRV Rao Prize in Social Sciences (Economics) and had been empanelled as an Indian Council for Cultural Relations Chair Professor in Economics. He has been a visiting research fellow/faculty at the NKC Centre for Development Studies, Bhubaneswar, Odisha; Punjabi University, Patiala, Punjab; Tshwane University of Technology, Pretoria, South Africa; University of Insubria, Varese, Italy; International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), The Hague, the Netherlands; University of Manchester, Manchester, UK; Institute of Developing Economies, Chiba, Japan; Institute for Studies in Industrial Development, New Delhi; CNRS-REGARDS, Bordeaux, France; Maison des Sciences de l’Homme (MSH), Paris, France; and Institute of Development Studies, Brighton, UK. Published extensively, his research focuses on issues in local and regional development; industrialisation strategies; informal sector; micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), clusters and globalisation; innovation; labour; basic infrastructure; and politics of development. Among others, his two published books with Springer are Globalization and Standards: Issues and Challenges in Indian Business (ed., 2014), and Manufacturing Exports from Indian States: Determinants and Policy Imperatives (co-authored with Jaya Prakash Pradhan, 2016).