Mission-oriented policies for sustainability transitions: Lessons from the Nordic industry transformation

Doktorsavhandling, 2025

Grand societal challenges, such as climate change and economic justice, are a key priority of public policy agendas. Mission-oriented policies have become a popular approach among policymakers worldwide to address such challenges. The ability of missions to provide a clear, focused framework makes them particularly attractive for societal challenges, where many stakeholders are involved, uncertainties and complexities are manifold, and diverse options and pathways may be pursued. However, so far, existing work provides little insight into the role of policies in societal missions nor offers sufficient guidance on how policy processes and policy mix design can be better aligned to achieve missions.
Grounded in the sustainability transitions literature, this thesis aims to improve the understanding of the role that policymaking plays in achieving societal missions. The thesis develops an analytical framework which extends the innovation systems approach by linking policymaking to the direction and dynamics of innovation, production, and consumption patterns. Using this analytical framework, the thesis studies three cases in the historical and ongoing transformation of the Nordic process industries. The Nordic countries have had implemented policies with an implicit mission-orientation over an extended period, and thus, should offer relevant insights into the role of mission-oriented policymaking in sustainability transitions.
The thesis contributes to studies on mission-oriented policies in sustainability transitions in three ways: with empirical findings from the Nordic process industries, insights into policy challenges when shaping transition processes, and guidelines on how systems could be studies to support mission-oriented policy research and practice. First, the cases show that in the Nordic process industries, the combination and sequencing of market mechanisms, innovation and industrial policies mattered for the direction and development of innovation and industrial development, by influencing which actors enter when into new technological fields and how they structure their activities. Second, the cases also reveal challenges for policymakers, for example, in anticipating, monitoring and analysing the interpretations, strategies and behaviours of innovation and industry actors or orchestrating the emergence of multiple value chains. Third, building on the derived analytical framework and lessons from the empirical studies, this thesis proposes some guidelines on how systems could be studied to support the alignment of policy processes and policy mix design in societal missions.