Table 2.

Structural elements of the technological innovation system.

Structural elements	Description
Actors	Actors and their competences shape the development of a technology. They can be part of a value chain (when the system becomes commercially organized), or they can be policy actors, researchers, funding organizations, etc. Actors possess competences that can be used to support the development of the innovation system (Carlsson et al., 2002).
Networks	Networks emerge when actors organize themselves to achieve common goals. Networks are seen as important ways to exchange knowledge and transfer technology. Networks have different purposes and include developing academic knowledge and transferring technology between academia and industry, as well as collaboration among industry actors (consortia) and between users and suppliers (Jacobsson and Bergek, 2011).
Institutions	Institutions form the regulatory and socio-cultural contexts in which a technology is embedded. They cover elements such as the laws and regulations that govern the innovation system. But institutions can also include less tangible elements such a culture, mental frames or cognitive representations (Tripsas and Gavetti, 2000), dominant world views, and typical ways of thinking about a problem (e.g. how the energy storage problem ought to be solved). Actors compete over markets but also over shaping the institutional context to their advantage, sometimes in lobby or policy networks (Smink et al., 2015).
Technology	Technology is understood as a field of knowledge, typically centered on one primary knowledge area, but also composed of complementary areas needed for its functioning. This knowledge is materialized in the form of technological artifacts, which are applied in products (for instance, a flywheel in a storage device) (Jacobsson and Bergek, 2011).