{"id":249664,"date":"2026-11-01T03:04:57","date_gmt":"2026-10-31T21:34:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=249664"},"modified":"2026-11-01T04:05:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-31T22:35:12","slug":"reconstructing-the-notion-of-innovation-towards-indigenous-technological-development","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/reconstructing-the-notion-of-innovation-towards-indigenous-technological-development\/","title":{"rendered":"Reconstructing The Notion Of Innovation: Towards Indigenous Technological Development"},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Nalaka Samaraweera<\/a>\u00a0\u2013<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

Nalaka Samaraweera<\/p><\/div>\n

The importance of invention and indigenous technological development was not entirely absent from Sri Lanka\u2019s colonial-era nation-building discourse. In the early twentieth century, Kumaratunga Munidasa, in Virith Wakiya<\/i><\/span>, expressed a powerful idea: Aluth aluth de notanana jathiya lowa nonagi<\/i><\/i><\/p>\n

A nation that fails to create new things cannot thrive in the world. Anagarika Dharmapala, meanwhile, advocated technical education and local productive capabilities, criticising an education system shaped by the extractive economy under the British colonial rule. While Munidasa emphasised invention as a condition of national advancement, Dharmapala stressed the technical knowledge and productive capabilities needed for economic self-reliance.<\/p>\n

These ideas recognised that nation-building required the ability to create and produce, not merely to consume. However, nearly a century later, how far have we realised these aspirations in practice? Sri Lanka\u2019s wind energy sector offers a revealing case through which to examine this question.<\/p>\n

A Nation That Innovates? What Wind Energy Reveals<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Wind energy has been part of Sri Lanka\u2019s development trajectory since the 1990s and is now a major component of our future energy plans. The National Energy Policy and Strategies of 2019 identifies renewable energy as a priority, while the Ceylon Electricity Board\u2019s Long-Term Generation Expansion Plan 2025\u20132044 envisages substantial expansion of wind power generation.\"\"<\/p>\n

Sri Lanka\u2019s progress in wind energy has undoubtedly expanded our renewable electricity generation capacity. But should we judge the significance of this progress solely by the electricity produced? International experience shows that investments in wind energy can also create opportunities to develop indigenous engineering expertise, manufacturing capabilities and technological knowledge, thereby strengthening the country\u2019s industrial ecosystem. To what extent have we harnessed these opportunities? Have we used the expansion of wind power as a stepping stone towards building our own technological capabilities, or has our progress remained largely confined to deploying technologies developed elsewhere?<\/p>\n

India, China and Taiwan offer useful perspectives as latecomers to modern industrialisation, each following a distinct historical path towards building technological capabilities. India is particularly relevant to Sri Lanka because of their shared colonial heritage. India entered the wind energy sector in the 1980s and gradually built a substantial domestic manufacturing industry, with annual manufacturing capacity reported at approximately 17 GW in 2024. Some Indian turbine designs have achieved more than 80% domestic component content. China, which has a much longer history as a state but pursued modern industrialisation later than the early industrialised economies, has progressed from large-scale manufacturing to the independent development of advanced wind turbine technologies. In 2024, Chinese manufacturer Mingyang connected its independently developed 20 MW offshore wind turbine to the grid. China has also invested in sophisticated testing infrastructure for full-scale blade and transmission-system testing, supporting the development and verification of increasingly advanced turbine designs.<\/p>\n

Taiwan has also used international partnerships and local industrial policies to develop its offshore wind industry. Taiwanese companies have established capabilities in manufacturing turbine towers, offshore foundations and electrical systems. Partnerships with international manufacturers have also enabled local nacelle assembly and the development of blade-manufacturing capabilities. Together, the experiences of these three Asian countries illustrate how investment in wind energy can build domestic manufacturing and engineering capabilities, while also supporting the gradual development of technological expertise.<\/p>\n

Although India, China and Taiwan differ from Sri Lanka in economic scale, industrial structure and state capacity, their experiences show that wind energy can serve purposes beyond electricity generation. It can provide a platform for technological learning, industrial development and the gradual accumulation of indigenous capabilities. As Sri Lanka expands its wind energy infrastructure, are we deliberately pursuing these opportunities, or allowing them to pass largely unnoticed? The issue is not whether we should manufacture complete wind turbines or replicate other countries\u2019 strategies, but whether we can build our own technological capabilities alongside expanding electricity generation.<\/p>\n

This question extends beyond wind energy. It brings us to a more fundamental issue in how do we, as a nation, understand innovation? Sri Lanka\u2019s failure to systematically pursue indigenous technological development cannot be adequately explained by popularly cited reasons such as limited funding and scarce resources. The deeper problem lies in how we define innovation, what we prioritise and what we recognise as significant achievement. Unless we challenge this prevailing perspective, simply increasing funding or providing more resources will not solve the problem.<\/p>\n

Rethinking the Concept of Innovation<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

The experiences of India, China and Taiwan challenge the conventional belief that frontier innovation is the primary pathway to technological advancement. Since advanced economies have achieved technological leadership through cutting-edge research and the development of new technologies, this pathway has often been regarded as the benchmark for innovation. However, countries still building their industrial capabilities can follow a different starting point. They can acquire foreign technologies, learn to manufacture and adapt them, strengthen local supply chains, and progressively develop indigenous designs and engineering expertise. Through coordinated efforts involving government, industry and research institutions, these countries have built technological capabilities that provide a foundation for advanced technological development. China\u2019s progress in offshore wind technology illustrates how this process can lead to cutting-edge innovation.<\/p>\n

The industrial transformation of East Asian economies during the 1970s and 1980s challenged the conventional understanding of innovation as the creation of technologies at the global frontier. Their experiences demonstrated that latecomers to industrialisation could build technological capabilities by learning from existing technologies, adapting and improving them, and progressively strengthening their own manufacturing and engineering capabilities. These experiences helped shape the National Innovation System\u00a0 <\/span>perspective, which shifts attention from isolated scientific achievements to the interactions among government, industry, universities and research institutions that enable countries to build technological capabilities.<\/p>\n

The central lesson is that innovation is not limited to breakthrough inventions. It also involves technological learning, adaptation and the gradual development of indigenous capabilities. What counts as innovation must therefore be understood in the context of a country\u2019s circumstances and technological needs. The challenge is not to replicate the pathways of advanced economies, but to align national priorities, policies and institutions with the technological capabilities the country needs to develop. The critical question for Sri Lanka is whether we have embraced this broader understanding of innovation or merely imitated the pathways of advanced economies without adequately considering our own technological needs and circumstances.<\/p>\n

The Alienation and Symbolic Performance of Research<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Our understanding of innovation is reflected in how we fund, evaluate and reward research. Research grant schemes and institutional evaluation criteria place considerable emphasis on internationally indexed publications, prestigious journals, patents, start-ups and commercialisation. These are recognised forms of achievement in advanced innovation systems. But when we adopt them as the primary measures of innovation without equal attention to indigenous technological development, we risk prioritising visible outputs over the capabilities our country needs to build.<\/p>\n

Technological development requires much more than publishing research findings. It involves engineering design, experimentation, adaptation, prototyping, testing and repeated improvement. These activities are essential to developing indigenous technologies, even when they do not immediately lead to prestigious publications, patents or commercial returns. When funding schemes and evaluation systems fail to adequately recognise such work, they provide few incentives for researchers to pursue technological development aligned with the country\u2019s needs.<\/p>\n

The consequences extend beyond weak university\u2013industry collaboration. Our research system risks becoming increasingly detached from the technological challenges facing the country. Researchers are encouraged to pursue the outputs rewarded by academic evaluation, while industries continue to rely heavily on technologies and expertise developed elsewhere. Scientific activity may expand and publications may accumulate, yet the country\u2019s capacity to develop its own technologies can remain limited.<\/p>\n

This is the danger of the symbolic performance of science. We celebrate recognised indicators of scientific achievement without adequately building the technological capabilities needed to turn knowledge into indigenous technologies. The problem is not that publications, patents or start-ups lack value. It is that these outputs can become substitutes for the deeper task of technological development. The appearance of innovation can then take precedence over the building of capabilities that make innovation possible.<\/p>\n

This is not an argument against frontier research or international scientific engagement. It is an argument for recognising their relationship with broader technological development. Without a strong technological ecosystem, how can we consistently produce genuine breakthroughs at the frontier of knowledge or sustain research that competes at the highest international levels? Start-ups, too, are more likely to develop and grow when they can draw on established engineering expertise, industrial capabilities and supporting institutions. By prioritising the visible outputs of innovation without adequately developing these foundations, we risk falling short on both fronts in indigenous technological advancement and sustained frontier research as we are witnessing today.<\/p>\n

Towards a Sri Lankan National Innovation System<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Research funding schemes and evaluation criteria reveal what we recognise and reward as innovation. But changing these incentives alone will not transform our technological future. The deeper challenge is to rethink what Sri Lanka seeks to achieve through innovation. We need an effective National Innovation System that places indigenous technological development at its centre, connecting government, universities, industry and research institutions around a common national purpose, building the technological capabilities we currently lack.<\/p>\n

The experiences of East Asian economies offer an important lesson. During the 1980s, technological catch-up through acquiring, adapting and improving existing technologies provided a pathway to industrial development. These countries did not simply wait for frontier breakthroughs. They built the capabilities needed to learn, manufacture and progressively develop their own technologies. Sri Lanka cannot simply replicate their historical pathways. After nearly half a century of profound technological change, we must confront a more pressing question. Which technologies should we master, and what must we do to develop the capabilities required?<\/p>\n

This cannot be an armchair exercise in designing an ideal innovation system or producing policy documents in isolation. It requires sustained engagement among policymakers, researchers, engineers and industry to identify strategic technologies and build the capabilities needed to develop them. Research funding and evaluation must support this effort, rather than define the limits of what we consider innovation.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, what is the purpose of our national innovation effort if it does not build our capacity to develop and master technologies of our own? What kind of National Innovation System can make this possible under today’s conditions? These questions deserve a central place in our national development debate. Until we confront them, we may continue to celebrate the outputs of innovation while remaining dependent on the technological capabilities of others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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