The objectives of technology policy

It is not useful, either in theory or in practice, to equate technology with science or with information. Many empirical studies show that most technology is specific, complex, partly tacit, and cumulative in its development. As a consequence, key questions for analysis and policy are, first, the nature and the extent of the interactions between science and technology; and, second, the accumulation in firms of technological knowledge, necessary not only for new and original inventions and applications, but also for effective assimilation of science and technology developed elsewhere.