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Who can be against innovation nowadays? Regarding the permanent injunction to innovate associated with contemporary societies – in many fields, if not the whole of society – we would be inclined to say no-one. Nevertheless, the answer is not so obvious in spite of appearances.

Indeed, at the same time as it contributed to popularizing the concept of sustainable development (“that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (Brundtland 1987, p. 14)), the Brundtland Report initiated numerous publications stigmatizing the negative impacts of anthropogenic activities on the environment, which has gradually established “sustainable development” as a major concern for our societies.

The necessarily progressive conception of innovation has tended towards decline. There are several reasons for this. These include the following, without claiming to be exhaustive:

 – the observation that we have never has so many technologies available to us while inequalities are growing in the world (the poor are getting poorer), that world hunger affects nearly 2 billion people, that half of the world’s population does not have access to basic healthcare according to the WHO, etc.;

 – the realization that the unbridled development of new technologies goes together with an incessant evolution of skills to use them, and leads to an accumulation of continuous learning or risk of being overwhelmed and staying on the side lines;

 – the contribution of innovation to growth and productivity gains that is running out of steam.

All these reasons have led to a disenchantment with regard to innovation. In this chapter, however, we will show that such disenchantment is not separate from our way of thinking and of implementing innovation.

The epistemology of innovation is indeed a valuable “tool” for studying and questioning the production of knowledge about innovation and, through this, the relationship of models to action. However, one observation must be made at the outset. While there is an abundance of academic literature dedicated to innovation (mainly apologetic, by the way), only a few focus on the links between innovation and society or, to be more precise, question the meaning of innovation.

Among the latter, there is a lack of consensus on the meaning of innovation. Indeed, there are many different points of view in the literature. For example, for Benoit Godin, innovation is essentially a political concept. Beginning with a history of the concept of innovation, he points out that it should be recalled that the concept was historically constructed and “those who have challenged innovation for centuries – governments – are the same ones who have de-challenged it, making innovation an instrument of economic policy” (Godin 2014).

For the supporters of design thinking, innovation generates meaning for the user. Popularized in the early 2000s under the aegis of Tim Brown, design thinking is presented as a “methodology that imbues the full spectrum of innovation activities with a human-centered design ethos” (Brown 2008, p. 86). The meaning of innovation and its perception by users are then considered as the designer’s main challenges¹ in order to avoid a dichotomy in meaning between the designer and the user, and to guarantee the success of the innovation. However, a question remains open, wondering if an innovation that makes sense for the user is necessarily advisable at a societal level?

For the promoters of responsible innovation, responsibility appears to be the aim of innovation. However, and as several authors have emphasized (Gossart 2018; Pavie 2018), this forgets that innovation considered responsible for its aim can have catastrophic ecological footprints or can be produced under deplorable working conditions. It also forgets that the concept of responsible innovation is not separate from the issues of the risk society; this, besdies the fact that it is a revival of the figure of the omniscient actor, leads to a lock-in related to the paradigm of possible control over an uncertain future (Genus and Iskandarova 2017).

Despite generating knowledge, these different points of view underrate the “political meaning of innovation” question, as the link between innovation issues and the city². However, we will show that the circumspect view about innovation evoked above is intimately linked to the loss of the political meaning of innovation. We shall see that while this loss of meaning has led to a questioning of innovation, it has not only contributed to rehabilitating innovation but it has also opened the way to a renewed conception of innovation that acknowledges the fact that innovation must meet the inseparable objectives of creating value for the user and society. Because it rehabilitates the question of the political meaning of innovation, we will thus present the outlines of the Penser le Sens de l’Innovation (PSI) (Thinking about the Meaning of Innovation) approach (Chouteau et al. 2020). We will see, along the way, how this approach is situated in relation to the different points of view mentioned above and how the epistemology of innovation can highlight updated innovation practices, issues in sync with major contemporary challenges.