ABSTRACT

Since the collapse of the Soviet Republic, only one national system of innovation can still be described as ‘mission-oriented’ - and this is the French! Research is concentrated in a few high tech sectors and in a small number of firms; government defense and civilian contracts play an important role in this polarization; and the share of public sector in domestic expenditure is the highest in OECD. Mission-oriented policy structures are, thus, still predominant and persistent. There are however a lot of changes and policy experiments around these structures.