Introduction
The New European Innovation Agenda “aims to position Europe at the forefront of the new wave of deep tech innovation and start-ups” (European Commission, 2025a). This agenda has five main flagships:
funding scale-ups;
enabling innovation through experimentation spaces and public procurement;
accelerating and strengthening innovation;
fostering, attracting and retaining talent; and
improving policymaking tools (European Commission, 2025a, 2025b).
To support a fast economic recovery in the post-COVID-19 scenario and be prepared for potential global disruptions, it is important to analyze how new and emerging technologies can support the transition toward a greener and digital economy as well as foster the building of more inclusive and sustainable societies too (He and Chen, 2024; Korayim et al., 2025; Xu et al., 2022; Zhang et al., 2019, 2023). What are other regions doing now? What are their best practices, actions and policies? What lessons can we learn?
It is crucial to foster the circulation of innovative ideas and access to scientific outputs as well as develop strategic networks of collaboration (relational capital) (Ordóñez, 2024; Yang et al., 2022) between key global players in the field of science and technology.
Contents of the issue
The fourth issue of Journal of Science and Technology Policy Management presents a collection of seven papers addressing key topics for more inclusive and resilient economies and societies: blockchain, entrepreneurship, innovation, mobile payment, smart technologies, supply chains, sustainability and telemedicine. The issue provides empirical evidence from Bangladesh, India, Japan and Pakistan.
The first paper titled “Developing entrepreneurship skills in scientific academia: Best practices from India and Japan” (by Tikas) seeks “to identify such ‘entrepreneurial skills’ that the scientific community can develop within themselves through training and practice to improve their academic research translation capabilities and performance. From a qualitative perspective, this study currently presents a few findings from some of the best government-funded laboratories in India and Japan, where they are training their young researchers to be world-class scientists as well as entrepreneurs to help them commercialize their scientific research findings from lab to market for societal benefit. This paper intends to focus on identifying some of the ‘best practices’ in developing such capabilities that allow ‘entrepreneurial scientists’ to take their science to the society through entrepreneurship. This paper presents two exemplary case studies about institutions that are trying to build innovation and entrepreneurship capabilities in their research groups through continuous training and practice in the fields of biotechnology (India) and autonomous transportation (Japan). Policymakers and top management teams at academic institutions can learn from the ‘best practices’ on envisioning, evaluation and execution skills for designing their innovation and entrepreneurship skill-building programs for their scientific community.”
The paper titled “Mathematical optimization of the sustainable gasoline supply chain: Systematic literature review” (by Arab, Sheikholislam and Abdollahi Lashaki) aims to “review studies on mathematical optimization of the sustainable gasoline supply chain to help decision-makers understand the current situation, the exact dimensions of the problem and the models provided in the literature. So, a more realistic mathematical optimization model can be achieved by fully covering all dimensions of the supply chain of this product. To evaluate and comprehend the mathematical optimization of the sustainable gasoline supply chain research area, a systematic literature review is undertaken that covers material collection, descriptive analysis, content analysis and material evaluation steps. Finally, based on this process, 69 related articles were carefully investigated. The results of the systematic literature review show the main areas of the published papers on mathematical optimization of sustainable gasoline supply chain problems and the gaps for future research in this field presented based on them. This approach is subject to limitations because the protocol of the systematic review of the research literature only included searching for the considered combination of keywords in the Scopus and ProQuest databases. Furthermore, the protocol used in this paper restricts documents to English. The results have significant implications for both academicians and practitioners in this field. It can be useful for academics to comprehend the gaps and future trends in this field. Also, for practitioners, it can be useful to identify and understand the parts of the mathematical optimization model, which can help them model this problem effectively and efficiently.”
The paper titled “Examining the effect of perceived risk, self-efficacy and individual differences on consumer intention to use contactless mobile payment services” (by Kamboj, Matharu and Shukla) explores “the influence of perceived risk (perceived susceptibility and perceived severity), self-efficacy and individual differences (personal innovativeness and mobile payment knowledge) on consumers’ intention to use contactless mobile payment services (MPS). Additionally, it also empirically tested the moderating effect of hygiene consciousness in the proposed conceptual model. The present research developed a conceptual model based on the health belief model (HBM) and diffusion of innovation theory (DOI) to empirically assess whether and how perceived risk, self-efficacy and individual differences influence consumer intention to use contactless MPS. The data was collected using the survey method from 251 smartphone users and analyzed with structural equation modeling. The moderating role of hygiene consciousness was studied in the relationship that self-efficacy and personal innovativeness shares with consumers’ intention toward contactless MPS. The results of this study disclose that among all precursors of consumers’ intention toward contactless MPS, only perceived severity, self-efficacy, personal innovativeness and mobile payment knowledge positively affect consumers’ intention to use contactless MPS. However, the effect of perceived susceptibility on consumers’ intention toward contactless MPS was found to be non-significant. The results further depict that hygiene consciousness acts as a moderator in driving consumers’ intention toward contactless mobile payment services.”
The paper titled “Innovations, strategic organizational actions, and sailing-ship effect: Illustrated with an IT product” (by Kompella) proposes that “in socio-technical transition theory, resistance by existing technology and regime resistance plays a key role. The resistance is in the form of intentional improvements; eventually, the regime destabilizes and adopts the new technology, referred to as the sailing-ship effect. Researchers used a structural view and examined it as a strategic action and its relationship with new technology (competitive/symbiotic) in non-fast-changing sailing systems. This study uses a microlevel view and examines it in a fast-changing where products/services are developed by integrating existing technology with new product innovations; their success depends on addressing technical/market uncertainty. This study examines the sailing-ship effect in a fast-changing system and contributes to the socio-technical transition theory.”
The paper titled “The role of smart technologies in managing supply chain post pandemic: An exploratory scientific procedures and rationales for systematic literature review” (by Agarwal, Malhotra and Swami) affirms that “the COVID-19 pandemic has brought unprecedented disruptions to global supply chains, compelling organizations to reevaluate their strategies for resilience and adaptability. In response, smart technologies (ST) have emerged as integral tools in post-pandemic supply chain management (SCM). This study aims to conduct an exploratory systematic literature review to comprehensively examine the evolving landscape of smart technology adoption in the context of SCM post-pandemic. A systematic literature review has been conducted to examine the potential research contribution or directions in the field of ST and SCM. In total, 240 articles were shortlisted from the SCOPUS database in the chosen field of research. Bibliometric analysis was conducted by using VOSviewer to investigate the research trends in the area of SCM. The review identifies key themes and trends, including supply chain resilience, digital transformation, enhanced visibility, predictive analytics and sustainability considerations. It explores the role of ST in fostering agility, transparency and risk mitigation within supply chains. Furthermore, eight clusters were identified to generate several thematic topics of ST in SCM. The results have evidenced a strong gap related to Industry 5.0 approaches for the supply chain field. A total of 240 publications, including journal articles, have been found in the literature. A total of 37 words, which were grouped in 8 clusters, have been identified in the data analysis.”
The paper titled “Investigating the factors affecting the acceptance of Blockchain in telemedicine through an integrated model approach” (by Shaukat, Shafiq and Hussain) affirms that “as little research has been conducted to understand the factors influencing users’ intentions to adopt blockchain-based telemedicine (BBT), it is important to investigate BBT acceptance as incorporation of blockchain technology can solve telemedicine-related issues. Accordingly, this study aims to investigate the factors influencing behavioral intentions (BI) to adopt BBT. An integrated model comprising the constructs taken from technology–organization–environment framework, technology acceptance model, unified theory of acceptance and use of technology and theory of planned behavior based on their relevance to the context and the objectives of the study has been used for this research. A quantitative approach has been used to test the hypotheses, for which the data was collected from 324 respondents through a self-administered questionnaire. Partial least squares structural equation modeling has been used to test the hypotheses. The results of the study show that relative advantage, perceived usefulness, trust and perceived ease of use have a significant impact on BI to adopt BBT, whereas regulatory support, subjective norms and facilitating conditions do not have any significant impact on the same. As the concept of BCT in Pakistan is at its nascent stage and literature regarding this technology’s adoption is also limited, researchers and scholars can apply it to several other fields in Pakistan.”
The paper titled “How does digital payment transform society as a cashless society? An empirical study in the developing economy” (by Bhuiyan, Akter and Islam) states that “after analyzing these uncountable benefits of digital or cashless payment, many European countries like Sweden, Finland and Canada has been trying to convert their payment system into cashless. Following these developed countries, the Bangladesh Government has taken a decision to transfer society as a cashless society by using information technologies for adopting the fourth industrial revolution over the world. Digital payment system is among the various options available for transforming a cashless society. First, this empirical study presents demographic information and digital payment characteristics on the basis of income levels. This study identifies influential factors of adopting digital payment systems. Finally, this study aims to justify how digital payments transform the Bangladeshi economy into a cashless society in developing countries. The study was administered to a sample of 1,000 Bangladeshi customers who had engaged in online banking transactions for the purpose of acquiring items and services through both social media platforms in Google Form format and face-to-face interactions in hard copy format. Among these, 647 questions were deemed usable and were used for data analysis, where the response rate was 68%. The SmartPLS is used to create and validate the structural equation modeling model presented for the research, as well as to evaluate the hypothesized correlations between the different constructs. This cross-sectional study conducted the extended technology acceptance model (TAM) with perceived security (PS) and personal innovation (PI) variables to identify the influencing adoption factors of digital payment systems. This study finds that perceived ease of use, PI and perceived usefulness have a favorable impact on individuals’ attitudes toward adopting digital payment methods (DPMs). The study also indicated that PS did not influence negatively the adoption of digital payment system. Besides this, the adoption of digital payment will help to transform society into a cashless society in the future.”
