Beyond Socio-Technical Innovation: Lesson Learned from Jatropha Fuel Development in Indonesia

Abstract

The paper focuses on a socio-technical innovation of Jatropha development in Grobogan district, Indonesia. The aim of this study is to understand that despite technical feasibility, financial support from the government and private sector involvement, Jatropha-based fuel development in the area failed to survive. The analysis is performed via combining functions of innovation system, which focuses on the presence of entrepreneur, knowledge diffusion, legitimacy and market and Strategic Niche Management, which focuses on learning, networking, and articulating expectation. The result of this study shows that an innovation design of Jatropha development was able to travel from the engineers' laboratory work, the policy makers' offices into the farmers' land through continuous adjustments of adding new policies, introducing new business model in a limited time. Analysis of this paper suggests that biofuel development, Jatropha in particular, can only be survive either through innovation, of continuously adjusting the design and implementation or through embedding it to the existing market. The Grobogan case shows that Jatropha development failed to survive due to the absence of both possibilities.