Policy Relevance and Theory Development in Innovation Studies

The challenge of innovation and technological change to traditional methods in economics and other social sciences has been a fertile research programme with a broad and diverse collection of theories and empirical research projects, including evolutionary economics and studies of national, regional and sectoral aspects of national systems of innovation. This paper presents a brief review of the evolution of ideas of the economics of technological change in the broad area of industrial structure, innovation dynamics and economic performance. Our emphasis is on contributions which might have policy relevance when it comes to the design and implementation of innovation-related policy. This review provides the general context for the discussion of some of the research findings of the European Commission Targeted Socio-Economic Research (TSER) Programme in the area of national systems of innovation. Finally, the paper explores a number of directions for further work in the area of innovation-related policy oriented research.