Innovation Policy for Knowledge Production and R&D: the Investment Portfolio Approach

Who produces scientific and technical knowledge these days? What type of knowledge is being produced and for what purposes? Why are firms and governments funding research and development? This chapter studies the role of knowledge production (especially R&D activities) in the innovation process from an innovation system perspective. It examines how governments and public agencies in different countries and at different times have actually approached the issue of building, maintaining and using knowledge production in their innovation systems. It also examines the critical and most important issues at stake from the point of view of innovation policy, looking in particular at the unresolved tensions and systemic unbalances related to knowledge production and last but not least, it elaborates a set of overall criteria for the selection and design of relevant policy instruments and addresses those tensions and unbalances. This chapter suggests that innovation policy develops a portfolio approach to the public investment in R&D and knowledge production.