The 'Policy Mix' For Innovation: Rethinking Innovation Policy In A Multi-Level, Multi-Actor Context

Recent years have seen the emergence, take-up and use of the term 'Policy mix' by innovation policy makers and by policy analysts & scholars alike. Imported from economic policy debates, the term implies a focus on the interactions and interdependencies between different policies as they affect the extent to which intended policy outcomes are achieved. However the meaning of the term remains ambiguous. Nonetheless, the authors argue that the emergence of the 'Policy mix' concept into common use in the field of innovation policy studies provides them with a window of opportunity to reconsider some basic and often hidden assumptions in order to better deal with a messy and complex, multi-level, multi-actor reality.