For a sociological account of urban science and technology policies: understanding cultural, economic and political determinants

This paper is part of a broader project of research which, through the empirical analysis of urban Science and Technology Policies (STP) – in particular, policies aimed at supporting the creation and consolidation of start-ups, the technology transfer process between research and business and more in general the establishment of innovation ecosystems in urban contexts – intends to investigate the relationships between policymaking – understood in its cultural, political and economic dimensions – and the continuities or changes in accumulation strategies. The aim of the paper is to identify conceptual tools useful to investigate and understanding the aforementioned relationships in a specific urban context, starting from a critical analysis of approaches and theories covering different fields of study. After exploring some aspects of the city-capitalism nexus, in particular the recent phenomenon of start-up urbanism, the contribution will focus on critical approaches to research and innovation and urban political economy that share some theoretical assumptions that characterise the more general framework of the Cultural Political Economy (CPE). Being a grand-theoretical project, its insights can be applied far beyond its home domain in political economy, and can help to define a research program suitable to investigate the relationships between policy making and accumulation strategies in the light of the relationship between the processes of technological innovation and the political economy of contemporary capitalism. The role of political-economic imaginaries, in particular, is identified as a reference for the subsequent process of operationalisation.