Anna Essén

How do actors overlook uncomfortable information? We add to the understanding of how potential problems can be ignored over long periods, in spite of recurrent warnings. Ignoring then becomes a dynamic process of responding to evolving ignoring ‘threats’ or triggers by combining knowledge-seeking and knowledge avoidance in ways that must be continuously legitimated, both in one’s own eyes and in those of relevant parts of the environment. Drawing on a longitudinal case study, we find that ambiguity-juggling – mutually supporting acts foregrounding and backgrounding ambiguity – constitute a key element of such ignoring work. Our study adds to the literatures on strategic or wilful ignorance and ambiguity management by providing a novel explanation for how actors dynamically mobilize motives for ignoring and thereby navigate uncomfortable information that evolves over time. As we show, sustained forms of ignoring involves interactions between shifting ignoring triggers, adaptive ignoring work, and evolving states of organized ignorance. This conceptualization contributes to the ignoring literature by extending current accounts of the ‘why’, ‘how’, ‘how much’, and ‘who’ of ignoring, as well as its outcomes.

Mission-driven innovation (MDI) policies are founded on governmental attempts to address fundamental but complex societal challenges. The rationale behind such attempts is typically to influence the directionality of innovation towards addressing the perceived challenge. This report focuses on a particular instance of MDI policy executed by Sweden’s innovation agency, Vinnova: the funding of five so-called “mission-driven environments” (MDEs) in 2019. The policy in question is called ‘Vision-Driven Health’ and was initiated in 2019 to support the establishment of inter-organizational and cross-disciplinary coalitions that work towards a common vision and a long-term systemic transformation within the Swedish health care and life science sector.