What are transformative missions, really? Three dimensions for one shared understanding

Abstract Innovation policy debates increasingly position missions as a means to induce, direct, and accelerate socio-technical transformation in response to persistent societal challenges. Along with their growing popularity, critiques of missions question their potential to deliver on stated and projected promises. This raises the question of what it fundamentally means for missions to be transformative. We believe that a more nuanced perspective is needed on the plural ways in which missions contribute to systemic change and propose three dimensions along which missions can be transformative: intentions, processes, and effects. By synthesizing recent literature around these dimensions, we draw attention to the diversity in ways and degrees to which missions may or may not be transformative and propose seven types. We claim that transformative dimensions need to be situational and adaptable to, for example, the objectives of policymakers or the context and scope of change.