The Research Network on Innovation is inaugurating the new form and format of its blog by presenting the framework of its major thematic strands, which have taken shape after eight years of intense intellectual effort. The readership is demanding; the editorial team rises to the challenge. A cross-cutting analysis of sources drawn from the RRI/RNI Blog over recent years outlines the contours of a society undergoing profound transformation, confronted with an unprecedented convergence of economic, ecological, and digital crises. To face these challenges, organizations and social systems are no longer content with superficial reforms, but instead engage in deep transformations driven by systemic, open, and territorially embedded innovations.

Challenges, Stakes, Dead Ends, or New Pathways?

The current growth model is being called into question: prosperity would no longer depend solely on physical factors, but on latent socio-economic forces such as intergenerational altruism, the sharing of resources (material and financial) and knowledge, and a collective appetite for risk-forces that appear to be eroding in favor of a quest for absolute security and withdrawal. At the same time, the emergence of impact investing seeks to reconcile profit with social utility, yet this form of capital valorization struggles to reach maturity in the face of persistent financial rent-seeking logics.

From an ecological perspective, the crisis is described as a tragedy in which technology plays an ambivalent role, acting as both poison and remedy. The major challenge lies in moving beyond techno-solutionism—the belief that technical innovation alone can resolve climate collapse without a shift in social paradigms. A striking example is the paradox of plastic recycling, often used by industrial actors as an “illusion of circularity” to avoid reducing production at the source. Similarly, renewable energies are undergoing a form of “fossilization”: they reactivate centralization logics, create new geopolitical dependencies linked to critical metals (lithium, rare earths), and generate land-use conflicts. Water management is also becoming a multifaceted systemic risk (health, economic, and security-related), requiring increasingly contentious trade-offs between agriculture, industry, and domestic consumption.

Moreover, the current digital revolution is marked by the dominance of intellectual monopolies (GAFAM and ByteDance) that capture and appropriate global knowledge. The European Union is attempting to respond through the Digital Markets Act (DMA) to restore interoperability and foster the emergence of local start-ups. Nevertheless, the digital divide remains deep, as American firms often exploit the results of European research due to superior absorptive capacity.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) lies at the heart of these upheavals. No longer a mere simulation, it is a force transforming intellectual labor, threatening to automate up to 300 million jobs while promising productivity gains of 35%. A major organizational phenomenon is emerging: Shadow AI. This refers to the clandestine use of AI tools by employees to boost productivity, exposing firms to massive data leaks and legal risks. At the same time, the data economy is turning everyday objects—such as robotic vacuum cleaners or connected cars—into sophisticated surveillance tools enabling financial and behavioral profiling of users. Consumers, often victims of dark patterns (manipulative design), relinquish their privacy by default consent or fatigue in the face of unreadable terms of use. Finally, the future is taking shape through Web 3.0 (blockchain, NFTs) and quantum computing, which promise to break with traditional binary logic and dramatically increase AI’s computing power—at the risk of further widening the digital divide.

Toward New Innovation Paradigms

In response to this instability, economic and social systems are shifting toward new innovation paradigms. Innovation can no longer be the act of an isolated entrepreneur (the classic Schumpeterian model), but instead becomes a collective and open process. The Open Innovation 2.0 paradigm relies on open source, open data, and standardization to break technological rent positions. Organizations adopt a “system of systems” approach to anticipate shocks and coordinate heterogeneous actors (firms, universities, public administrations, citizens).

The modern firm becomes a hybrid entity in which formal structures ensuring reliability coexist with informal knowledge communities that generate innovation. To integrate these forms of knowledge, organizations create “boundary structures” or encourage intrapreneurship. They also promote strategic divestment (spin-offs or divestitures) to stimulate innovation by restoring autonomy and flexibility to specialized entities, while maintaining control over numerous critical assets dispersed across multiple entrepreneurial environments worldwide.

Work itself is becoming fragmented with the rise of freelancing, pushing independent workers to form collectives to break isolation and pool skills. Hybrid forms of work—such as “workations” (working while on vacation), multi-employer arrangements, telework, or techno-scientific entrepreneurship—are emerging in response to the well-being aspirations of younger generations. In this way, innovation is now anchored in territories to respond to disruptions in global value chains. Territorialized Production Chains (e.g., metal recycling or agricultural methanization) enable the relocalization of value added and the reduction of ecological footprints. Initiatives such as “Territoires zéro chômeur de longue durée” treat employment as a territorial “commons.” Cities become sites of distributed production through Fab Labs and third places, fostering urban circularity and the involvement of “prosumers.”