A wide range of complementary innovation policies provide a basis for promoting the formation of innovation systems. They include policy instruments to facilitate collaborative research, to incubate University ideas, to use public procurement to build networks or to stimulate the formation of clusters but in each case the point is to create connections that will not otherwise arise spontaneously. Their principal purpose is to create opportunities and enhance innovative capabilities by stimulating innovation system formation (Smits and Kuhlmann, 2004[1]).
It’s also clear that the old innovation approach and policy paradigm (one problem, one fix) is no longer sustainable as there are certainly more problems than solutions and whilst the role of somehow policy intervention, from fixing failures to support and drive forward systems, has opened a great scope for impact assessment and appraisal of innovation policies before the policy is finalised and implemented – in order to assess if the intervention is consistent and coherent with the innovation targets – during the implementation phase – to assess if policies are appropriately implemented and the secondary effects are not as such as to limit or hinder the original objectives – and, finally, ex-post – in order to assess results achieved.
[1] Smits, R. and S. Kuhlmann (2004). “The rise of systemic instruments in innovation policy.” International Journal of Foresight and Innovation Policy 1: 4-32.