Coupled innovations refer to innovations that are designed in a coordinated way, even though they belong to fields of innovation that are generally managed independently and/or by different actors. During a coupled innovation process, technical, organizational, institutional and/or social innovations are combined, in a coherent way, to solve a complex problem and/or contribute to unlocking socio-technical systems . Note that the term “coupled innovation” refers to both an innovation process and the resulting innovation(s).

Coupled innovation poses organizational (coordinating to innovate together in a coherent way) and methodological (understanding and/or supporting the emergence of coupled innovation) challenges for the actors, which can be supported by interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research approaches. Living labs are social devices that can reinforce coupled innovation by involving a diversity of stakeholders in the process. Coupled innovation can also be the result of a responsible innovation system.

In the Ile-de-France region, for example, a range of actors have joined forces to produce and add value to bread wheat populations by designing a panel of innovations: technical (adapted crop management sequences and cropping systems), technological (new milling and bread-making processes adaptable to the variability of the raw material generated by these population wheats), and organizational (a cooperative company – Société Coopérative d’Intérêt Collectif, SCIC – coordinating farmers, a miller and bakers). This example of coupled innovation on wheat populations could be adapted to other varietal mixture with similar challenges for their implementation.

By proposing a stronger coordination of the innovation processes of actors in agrifood systems, coupled innovation is a driving force for the agroecological transition. To date, the concept has mainly been used to coordinate innovations in agricultural practices and innovations in food or machinery. Its use could be extended to other fields.