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The latest long-term plan for science and technology reflects China's determination both to overcome growing domestic social and environmental problems through technology and to become a world leader in innovation. This latest fifteen-year plan presents no radical departure from earlier strategies and continues to define policymaking by Beijing's strong belief that innovation can be "decreed" top-down or steered by the government. The plan relies heavily both on supply-side policies for research and education and on a technology-driven view of innovation, rather than tackling less tangible and more complex issues such as deficits in social capital, institution-building, and building an innovation-friendly environment. New features in the plan include a clear emphasis on energy, environment, and water resources. New targets in the plan to strengthen "independent" or "indigenous" innovation raise concerns abroad over the emergence of "techno-nationalism" and implications for China's future economic openness.

Abstract
Several countries have created policy instruments seeking to direct research and innovation (R&I) toward addressing societal challenges. However, the design of such instruments might not always live up to their proclaimed transformative rationale. The aim of this paper is to examine empirically this matter. In a unique cross country comparison of four Grand Challenge-oriented R&I programs in the Nordic countries, we ask to what extent the design of new policy instruments for grand challenges are nested according to the rationale of transformative R&I policy. The findings show that, while all have individual transformative elements, they only exhibit weak or medium degrees of nesting. At a time of increasing transformative ambition of R&I policies, our findings make an important contribution to understanding and addressing the complexity of designing R&I transformative policy instruments.

Publication metadata ESIR is a high-level expert group that provides evidence-based policy advice to the European Commission on how to develop a forward-looking and transformative research and innovation policy. This will help drive Europe's transition to full sustainability. In this publication, ESIR offers guidance on how a 'protect-prepare-transform' approach can ensure fast learning from innovation by relying on smart and coherent policies, collaborative efforts across levels of government and decentralisation of governance, and most importantly the courage to direct research and innovation at the transformations Europe is facing.

This ESIR Focus Paper provides a 'deeper dive' into the role of nations, regions and cities as vectors for systemic change in the post-pandemic economy and society. It builds on and complements ESIR's second Policy Brief, which offers guidance on how a 'protect-prepare-transform' approach in the post-pandemic Europe can ensure fast learning from innovation by relying on smart and coherent policies, collaborative efforts across levels of government and decentralisation of governance, and most importantly the courage to direct research and innovation at the transformations Europe is facing.