RESEARCH ARTICLE Lost in translation: Challenges in creating new transformative innovation policy practices Johanna Ulmanen ID 1,2 , Anna Bergek ID 1 , Hans Hellsmark ID 1 * 1 Department of Technology Management and Economics, Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden, 2 Department of System Transition and Service Innovation, RISE—Research Institutes of Sweden, Borås, Sweden * hans.hellsmark@chalmers.se Abstract The purpose of this paper is to identify key challenges that national policymakers face in try- ing to translate transformative innovation policy (TIP) theory into policy practice. We focus on the case of the Swedish innovation agency Vinnova’s attempt to translate its TIP-related innovation perspective into the policy practice of the Swedish Innovation Partnership Pro- gramme (IPP). By means of a discourse perspective, we identify two key discourses and one institution influencing Vinnova’s translation process. In addition, we describe four key challenges that Vinnova faces in this translation process relating to (i) the involvement of rel- evant stakeholders, (ii) overcoming a dominant discourse, (iii) time constraints of an institu- tionalized parliamentary system, and (iv) realizing policy coordination ambitions. This study adds to previous literature in identifying dominant discourses or institutional structures as a key barrier for change. Its contribution is to show how transformative translation challenges are played out in a national-level context. Author summary The purpose of this paper is to identify key challenges that national policymakers face when translating a set of new ideas on policy for sustainability transitions, called transfor- mative innovation policy (TIP), into policy practice. Considering the urgency of sustain- ability transitions and that these new ideas have hardly been tested in practice, it is of general interest to understand what such challenges can be. In this paper we focus on the case of the Swedish innovation agency Vinnova and their attempt to translate some of the new core ideas into policy practice. In the paper we identified how different ideas from the Swedish Social Democratic Party, together with linear and technocratic ideas on inno- vation influenced Vinnovas translation process. In addition, we identify four key chal- lenges faced by Vinnova, which other policy practitioners will also most likely encounter if they adopt similar ideas: (i) the involvement of relevant actor groups, (ii) overcoming existing and dominating ideas on how policy should be formulated, (iii) time constraints of an institutionalized parliamentary system, and (iv) delivering on policy coordination. The main contribution of this study is to show how transformative translation challenges are played out in a national-level context. PLOS SUSTAINABILITY AND TRANSFORMATION PLOS Sustainability and Transformation | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pstr.0000031 October 17, 2022 1 / 23 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 OPEN ACCESS Citation: Ulmanen J, Bergek A, Hellsmark H (2022) Lost in translation: Challenges in creating new transformative innovation policy practices. PLOS Sustain Transform 1(10): e0000031. https://doi. org/10.1371/journal.pstr.0000031 Editor: Prajal Pradhan, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), GERMANY Received: March 21, 2022 Accepted: August 23, 2022 Published: October 17, 2022 Copyright: © 2022 Ulmanen et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Data Availability Statement: All data are in the manuscript and/or supporting information files. Funding: JU, AB and HH were supported by Formas [grant number 2017-00256]. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.