First, Ralf Lindner et al. describe the change of ‘STI policy paradigms’ from 1. focusing on generating knowledge and addressing market failures, to 2. taking an innovation systems approach, to 3. the normative turn focusing on societal-problem-led, transformative change. Although these paradigm changes have become widely recognized in innovation and transition studies fields, the role of scientific expertise in these paradigms and the analytical depth of the chapter goes well beyond what had been written so far.

In the second chapter, Rainer Frietsch et al. deal with the development in innovation monitoring and innovation indicators. The authors describe how early innovation indicators centered around research and development (R&D), that the innovation systems perspective broadened this scope to include indicators for e.g. knowledge diffusion, and that more recently information and computer science methods further expanded the range of innovation indicators. They warn that innovation indicators should not be a goal in itself, a warning that may equally apply to innovation itself.

Kerstin Cuhls (et al.) rich analysis on foresight finds that – over the past five decades – foresight has moved from deterministic views to more open and diverse future perspectives, and from research teams to participative approaches. Strategic intelligence also thrived with the advent of big data and AI. This helped change the role of foresight from informing, to connecting innovation systems, and to provide transformative governance advice in highly dynamic and complex social systems of today.

Susanne Bührer et al. describe in detail substantial theoretical, methodological and evaluation community developments in the field of STI policy evaluation from the 1960s to today. Linked to chapter two, the authors observe an increasing trend in responsible and inclusive policy evaluation procedures. They stress the need for continuous critical reflection on the changing role of STI policy evaluation.

Discussing the fifth field, technology assessment (TA), the authors around Nils B. Heyen identify three – co-existing – phases since the 1960s: from expert-based, to participatory, to pragmatic TA approaches. They reflect on the rapid introduction of new assessment methods and thematic hype cycles of technologies as well as the (mis)use of TA in politics and their increasingly prominent role in normative, problem-(particularly mission-)oriented STI policy. Their conclusion: New TA approaches will be needed in the future.

The sixth (and first sectoral) field, authored by Christian Lerch and Angela Jäger, covers production or manufacturing paradigms and their systemic embedding. After the process of deindustrialization in the 1970s, several paradigm shifts in manufacturing can be observed – characterized by (or rather presented as) cycling between technological (like Industry 2.0‑4.0) and organizational disruptions (like lean manufacturing). These paradigms contain 1. the trade-off between industrial productivity and working conditions; 2. global competitiveness; 3. coupling the physical and digital world. Throughout these paradigm shifts, the German manufacturing sector continues to account for a large share of Germany’s innovativeness and competitiveness.

Julia Panny et al. cover the topic of renewable energy development and diffusion in Germany. Although already abundantly explored in literature, the chapter provides a nice illustration of how policy support measures co-evolved with the technology’s diffusion, stressing the importance of a holistic approach that includes market and systems integration and transformation, and socio-economic impacts as diffusion rates crank up.

The authors around Eberhard Jochem explore how energy system modelling approaches and energy efficiency dynamically developed over fifty years, following different phases, driven by economic and political factors. The phases focused on technology research, on renewable energy technology diffusion policy, and – continuing today – on interdisciplinary approaches to enable systemic change. The authors echo the call of previous chapters to develop new interdisciplinary approaches to monitor and govern today’s complex socio-technical systems changes.

The final SIR field, covered with a chapter by Thomas Hillenbrand et al. on sustainable water systems, also identifies shifts in developmental phases over the past fifty years, where the environmental problem first became recognized in the ‘establishment’ phase, increases in importance – ‘expansion’ phase, before reaching such a critical state that the need for systemic ‘transformation’ can no longer be denied. As the sector developed, solution foci changed from individual technologies to systemic solutions – a trend that resonates with previous chapters.

More holistic approaches are needed that go beyond technological innovation to tackle societal challenges.

Finally, the book concludes with Jakob Edler and Rainer Walz developing a model of the dynamic area of SIR, revolving around four drivers of change (“policy processes, contextual developments, theoretical developments and developments in data and methods”, p. 307). The model is applied to compare developments over the nine SIR fields, identifying overarching paradigm changes and highlighting the roles each field played. The editors conclude with the claim that more holistic approaches are needed that go beyond technological innovation to tackle societal challenges.

Overall, the book does a great job of capturing the past 50 years of SIR and STI policy developments in Germany. It is well structured and the individual chapters cross-reference and consistently refer to identified paradigm shifts and future research agendas, highlighting the role of the nine SIR fields in a complementary way. Although there is some repetition across the chapters, the books contribution lies in its comprehensiveness.

However, what I missed most is the omission of the largest and most rapidly growing field – transition studies, due to its relative novelty. Although understandable from the perspective of identifying paradigm shifts within SIR fields, it missed the point that the transitions studies field emerged because of the third paradigm, i.e. the normative turn or societal-challenge-led, transformative systems research orientation. Perhaps not surprisingly, some (but definitely not all) of the warnings and outlooks raised in the book are explicit research foci within the transition studies field. Examples are the role of non-technological or social innovation in solving societal challenges – and more holistic approaches in general; and the critiques on ecological modernization and green growth with alternatives like degrowth (a topic missing from the review). Considering the systems transformation scope, the importance of phase-out (and dealing with losers of socio-technical transitions) could also be raised – although outside the scope of STI. Perhaps some of these discussions feature less prominently in the German SIR area and result more prominently from analyses of liberal market economies’ more obvious capitalist drawbacks (as opposed to Germany’s coordinated market economy) – which marks the drawback of predominantly reviewing the German literature, but more likely it’s due to the omittance of transition studies and related governance literature.

Finally, the book also could have benefitted from engaging with novel innovation systems concepts like Mission-oriented Innovation Systems, Social Innovation Ecosystems, Dedicated Innovation Systems (developed and applied by German SIR scholars at University of Hohenheim), and challenge-oriented regional innovation systems (CoRIS). Having said this, the value of the lies in placing the SIR field in the context of paradigm developments over the past fifty years. As such, the book is of great interest for innovation scholars and innovation policymakers alike.