The orientation towards Grand Challenges creates a challenge for science, technology, and innovation (STI) policies and practices as we know them, because they are of a different kind than usual STI policy concerns. Grand Challenges are sometimes seen as priorities for R&D and innovation stimulation, and treated that way, say, through dedicated public funding. But they should rather be seen as open-ended missions, and missions concerning the socioeconomic system as a whole, even inducing (or requiring) system transformation. Thus, Grand Challenges are ambitious, but not in the way the Manhattan Project (to develop an atom bomb) and the Apollo Project (to put a man on the moon) were. There, the challenge was technical (and organisational), and whether the goals were achieved or not was unambiguous. Grand Challenges, though, pertain to heterogeneous elements and forces, which have to be mobilised, guided and integrated, and include social innovation. Many different actors need to be involved, and the perspectives on what is the problem and what constitutes its resolution differ across various societal groups. Also, we see both “drivers of novelty and innovation as well as processes of capture and co-optation ... involved” (Kallerud et al. 2013, 4), so Grand Challenges policies have to cope with contestation, non-linearity and bifurcations in developments. This is not a message of despair, but it does imply that our present understandings and practices of STI policy are not sufficient to address Grand Challenges and set priorities accordingly.
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