Analysing future change in the EU's energy innovation system

We develop a novel approach for quantitatively analysing future storylines of change by combining econometric analysis and Monte Carlo simulation for four different storylines of change in the EU's energy innovation system. We explore impacts on three key innovation outcomes: patenting (innovation), co-invention (collaboration), and technology cost reduction (diffusion). We find that diverse mixes of policy instruments stimulate collaborative innovation activity. We find that both RD&D expenditure and trade imports support knowledge generation and exchange, and that these relationships are largely robust to future uncertainty. Conversely, we find that policy durability and stability are only weakly linked to innovation outcomes, suggesting that adaptive policy responding to rapidly changing innovation environments should play an important part of the EU's energy future. •We analyse historical performance in the EU's energy innovation system.•We use Monte Carlo simulations to analyse scenario uncertainties.•We find policy diversity to be important for knowledge generation and exchange.•Our analysis provides both quantitative and qualitative insights on future change.•Our approach is generalisable to other forward-looking innovation systems analysis.