ABSTRACT
The traditional role of the state in science and technology policy has been challenged in recent decades. 1 A new set of ideas, sometimes referred to as the innovation paradigm, has increasingly influenced the policy development in this area. According to these ideas, the role of the state should no longer be to support only R&D, but the whole dynamic process, or system, in which innovations develop, diffuse and are utilized (Edquist, 1997; Fagerberg et al., 2005). The supporters of this paradigm argue that innovation policy should focus on promoting innovation within a given institutional context (like traditional science and technology policy) and on changing the institutional context in order to promote innovation (Biegelbauer and Borrás, 2003: 9). The focus of state activities in innovation policy should also be to facilitate collaborations and entrepreneurship among actors from different sectors, not only focusing on the role of universities or research institutes, but also on industry and different governmental actors (see e.g. Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff, 1997). Furthermore, the perspective suggests the need to integrate or coordinate different policy areas and lead them in the same direction, or at least persuade different policy actors to consider the innovation perspective within decision-making (Lundvall and Borrás, 2005; Pelkonen, 2008).
