Steering the Edge: How Policymakers Can Shape Tomorrow’s Breakthroughs from Today’s Fringe

Imagine a quantum leap, a biotech innovation that could help us eradicate diseases, or a new way of safely harnessing energy. Imagine how these new, unrecognized technologies could help human progress and drive civilization ahead. Now imagine how they are stuck in labs due to funding gaps and unable to pass the "valley of death" in the innovation process.

These stranded innovations belong to a unique space known as the fringe. These are the fringes—technologies and ideas lingering on society's edge, waiting to reach the mainstream or fade into obscurity. Policymakers can step in to guide them forward.  

This guidance is urgent as technology evolves faster than ever. The technology adoption cycle has accelerated dramatically. For instance, while it took landline telephones 40 years to reach 50% household penetration in the US, smartphones achieved this in under 10 years. This rapid pace, amplified by global connectivity and recent crises, demands that policymakers to shift their process. Forward-looking and strategic actions and investments are vital to secure a reliable future. Taking preemptive measures, not reactive ones. Guiding gently the possible fringe until it becomes the acceptable mainstream.

To act swiftly, policymakers must first understand the fringe's transformative potential.

The fringe exists on the outskirts of the conventional, the mainstream. It is the grassroots, the outsiders, that emerge beyond the norms before gaining traction. It is the ideas, movements, and innovations that diverge from the known and are on the edge of tomorrow. The fringe could prove to bear paradigm shifts and breakthrough innovations. It is risky and fraught with noise, yet highly rewarding if properly watched, steered, and assessed.  

The state needs to understand that it must move beyond its role as a bystander and embrace a more proactive role in the innovation process. It needs to nudge the fringe to fuel it into the mainstream. The internet, GPS, and microelectronics were all fringe tech backed by governmental organizations in the early stages of development. By harnessing public grants and programs, policymakers can guide these technologies toward human progress – enhancing creativity, equity, and resilience while taming chaos. Creating sandboxes not to cage but to facilitate innovation in the most ethical way possible. We need the state in the process because this fast-paced world of technology often surprises innovators themselves. Like a caring sibling, the state could help nurture but also navigate the innovation game safely.

History shows why such proactive engagement is critical. Investing in fringe tech is risky but can yield transformative returns. Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace's early computing concepts, dismissed in their time due to lack of relevant technology and established state mechanisms, later sparked industries like software and AI. Conversely, advisors like Woodley, who in the 1930s called space travel "utter bilge," and Bush, who dismissed the V2 rocket, show the perils of ignoring the fringe. Policymakers must think divergently to steer rewarding ideas forward.

Yet, not all policymakers are ready to take such risks. Some might argue that investing in fringe technologies is too risky, facing budgets and public scrutiny. Why fund unproven ideas when established industries promise safer returns? This conservative approach risks missing transformative opportunities. History shows that cautious policies—such as dismissing early space research as "utter bilge"—can delay progress or cede leadership to bolder nations. Investing strategically in the fringe might prove to be an economic and societal breakthrough. By pairing it with ethical oversight, policymakers can mitigate risks while unlocking the fringe's potential.

But where do we find these fringe innovations? The fringe can emerge everywhere where there's human creativity at work. We are looking for small groups of people, niche communities that gather and unite around a core line of thinking. We are looking for places, whether real or virtual, where people gather to talk, exchange ideas, and create, whether these are lab workers, students, hacker communities, and even makers and citizen scientists who often pioneer fringe tech outside institutional silos.

To nurture these creative communities, states must foster environments for collaboration. This is why it is good for the state to back or create places where the environment helps innovators come together and play with ideas. These are the places where innovators might gain from the so-called "information spill-over" effect. It contributes to generating and cross-pollinating ideas, which is crucial for creative thinking. These spaces could play a vital role in amplifying grassroots signals. Sofia Tech Park is such a place in Bulgaria.

However, fostering these hubs is only half the challenge—policymakers must also manage the risks of fringe tech. Since fringe tech can not only be positive but also capable of bringing chaos and disruption, policymakers have to be able to recognize and properly assess it using strategic foresight to anticipate impacts, prioritize human-centric progress, and guide its integration with ethical, adaptive policies. The rapid rise of social media improved communication and fueled misinformation at the same time.

To achieve this foresight, policymakers need a dedicated approach. Recognizing the fringe demands a scientific mind and imagination. Policymakers should use diverse task forces to track trends in technology, society, and geopolitics. These groups can work in collaboration to detect weak signals of future trends.

Such a task force might play a critical role in navigating the fringe. It will assess and take seriously fringe tech that could potentially become disruptive innovation. In order to do that, it must constantly scan the environment for possible signals of change, categorize these signals, and assess their possible future development. Such a group is a lookout that provides early notice about the direction technology (and disruptive innovation) might take. Governments don't want to be blindsided, especially in times when change is moving faster than ever before. Policymakers can work hand in hand with disruptors to benefit both sides' long-term goals.

Since the fringe can be a breeding ground for breakthrough innovation, but at the same time, it could prove to be risky but potentially transformative, the challenge lies in sifting through the noise to identify ideas and projects with real potential and discard the bogus ones. When assessing the fringe, one might also put in the "adjacent possible" – the limits and the creative potential of change and innovation. It will help us to have an idea of whether the realization of the fringe tech we are exploring is feasible within the near future and, if yes, whether it will be a fit for investing in it.

Here is a sample framework that policymakers could use to assess fringe ideas:

1. Scanning for Weak Signals and Fringes – This is the starting point. The most important quality to cultivate in this phase is curiosity. And an open mind. This is the time when we look at those weak signals that hint at a possible change. We have to train ourselves to notice what the others dismiss, to see those flickers on the edge of tomorrow. This step begins with peering beyond the present, cultivating a futurist's curiosity to catch weak signals—early hints of futures yet unseen.

   
   

2. Assessing the Fringes (Signal Strength, Velocity, and Direction) – Now that we've noticed something, we have to know how fast it's spreading and where it's headed. Signals alone aren't enough—momentum matters. This step charts trajectories into tomorrow—not just who's whispering, but how fast it's spreading and where it might land in a decade. Is it a slow burn with deep roots, like early open-source software, or a viral flare-up that could fizzle, a fleeting hype? Signal strength gauges the buzz; velocity tracks its pace, and direction envisions its arc—state maps futures, like spin-offs steering toward autonomous cities by 2040.

   
   

3. Assessing Plausibility (Test Feasibility, Does It Defy Known Science, Does It Require Greater-Than-Possible Leaps?) – This is the balancing step. The fringe often dances on the edge of the impossible, and that's its charm and trap. We will ground this in reality without killing the dream by asking whether it defies known science or demands leaps beyond current tech. The fringe often bends reality before it breaks it, and here we weigh its bend and ask: "Could it be plausible with a breakthrough we're not seeing yet?"

   
   

4. Assessing Scalability (What Happens If It Proves Feasible?) - This is where the rubber meets the road—a thought experiment projecting scale across futures. Does it reshape industries, societies, or a quiet corner—disruptive or steady? It forces policymakers to think big without losing sight of scope—projecting possibilities while staying tethered to impact. Here, the fringe's "edge of tomorrow" stretches—could it tip into paradigm shifts, or linger small? The idea of the state steering gently, eyes on the horizon.

   
   

5. Assessing Potential and Risks (Best, Worst, and Normal Case Scenarios)—This is the step where we map the potential and perils of fringes. This will be our compass on what's possible and how to navigate it—the map of what could be, not just what is. This is the most thought-exhaustive step of the framework and the liveliest one. We will revisit this place since scenarios require constant iteration and navigation. This will be our tool for navigating the fringe's wildness.

   
   

6. Experiment (Invest in Early-Stage Innovation, Sandboxes, Fund Experiments) – This is the step where the state actively supports innovation. State-funded sandboxes, micro-grants, or even X Prize-style challenges could ignite these fringe ideas while maintaining a "watchful experimentation" process—keeping an eye on unintended consequences as we go. This, of course, requires a very active role on the side of the state—to be proactive, not just to keep an eye on unintended ripples as we go. Steer with horizon bets—the state nurtures tomorrow's edge through watchful experimentation. Policymakers could partner with public entities in the field of innovation for this part, like our own Sofia Tech Park in Bulgaria, for example.

So, when we look at the fringe, we must look for the many opportunities fringe tech could provide us in the long run. The challenges and the dangers ahead of us as well. A key dilemma for policymakers is cultivating promising fringe ideas without sacrificing the innovation spark while keeping an eye on potential negative disruptive fringes. Guiding the fringe without sacrificing its freedom of spirit and the safety of the common good as well. Part of the process and the role the state can play is after fringe technology has been assessed as being feasible and has the potential to become a market product, to design such measures to help it cross the chasm and the startup to move swiftly through the valley of death in the innovation process. In addition to financial measures, the state could help innovators with tactics for finding the right niche so that they could "cross the chasm." This could happen with targeted measures like funds for early-stage concepts, small grants for startups and non-academics, enhancing PPPs, seed funding, sandboxes, accelerator programs, hackathons, challenges, etc.

Good examples of agencies and programs funding the fringe are the US Department of Energy's ARPA-E, DARPA, US National Science Foundation Convergence Accelerator, US EDA Tech Hubs Program, Horizon Europe's Pathfinder Programme, Innovate UK Smart Grants, Japan's Moonshot R&D Program, Australia's CSIRO Kick-Start Program, Singapore's National Research Foundation's CREATE Programme, and many more.

Ignoring the fringe on behalf of policymakers could be a safer move, but it could also potentially lead to missing the next paradigm shift or, worse, being blindsided by it. Exploring the fringe might help institutions and policymakers overcome their "fear" of change and the new. If we are to look at Joseph Schumpeter's creative destruction process, we will see that, at times, the fringe doesn't just emerge – it destroys to create. And that is not all bad – the PC didn't share the stage with the typewriter, nor did the car with horse carriages. And maybe AI will not with obsolete working processes. But we must be prepared and act before the paradigm shifts.

Government funding the fringe and backing the "crazy" ideas can yield breakthroughs while keeping risks at bay. It's a better option than letting chaos run wild.

Image: freepik.