'This is a highly important and timely Handbook. Innovation is of growing importance for future growth and wellbeing, as the foundation for new businesses, jobs and productivity growth, to help address climate change and other global challenges, and as way to improving public services. But we still know too little about what drives innovation, and which policies can make innovation work. This Handbook is an important effort to fill this gap. It provides a systematic analysis of the evidence on a wide range of innovation policy instruments, ranging from fiscal incentives to R&D, to cluster policies, to pre-commercial procurement. It also explores the various policy rationales that underpin innovation policies and provides practical examples of a wide range of policies. The Handbook will be a highly valuable reference for academics and policy makers alike, in OECD countries and beyond. It will certainly be a key source for the work of the OECD on innovation and innovation policy, and will hopefully be the start of further work to strengthen the evidence base for innovation policies.' --Dirk Pilat, Head, Science and Technology Policy Division, OECD Directorate for Science, Technology & Industry'Much more than a ''handbook'', this volume reviews what we have learned over 30 years of innovation policy and synthesizes the lessons into action. The timing could not be more crucial: Academics, policy makers, politicians, stakeholders and evaluators increasingly ask the question of "what works?" when it comes to innovation policy. The demand for innovation policy to deliver more growth, better competitiveness, and improved public services is growing. This Handbook sets the standard for learning in innovation policy, as it brings together and analyses the existing evidence on the full range of innovation policy measures. Analysis is at the core of the approach taken by the authors and editors, reporting on the breadth and quality of the underlying evidence. Its major merit lies in conceptualising innovation policy in ways that appeal to many stakeholders. The Handbook is not just cheerleading for innovation-it takes a critical stance on the meaning of context, the shortcomings of some existing evidence and methods, and the conditions and limits of policy interventions. It is a breakthrough in the literature on impact of innovation policy, of highest possible value to academics, evaluators, and policy makers who are making the tough decisions about the future of competitiveness and innovation.' --Caroline S. Wagner, Battelle Center for Science & Technology Policy, The Ohio State University, US and Editor of Science and Public Policy

'Business, media and policymakers all increasingly emphasize innovation as a source of economic development and as a mean to tackle social challenges that arise. As a consequence the question of how public policy can stimulate innovation has received more attention, and a number of different policy instruments - and combinations of these - have emerged and also tried out in practice. This book, written by a highly qualified team of experts from the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research, addresses the question of what is known about the effects of innovation policy, i.e., what works under which circumstances and why. For this purpose fifteen different types of innovation policy, ranging from for example R&D subsidies via public procurement to regulation and technology foresight, are distinguished and almost 600 previous evaluations of various aspects of innovation policy consulted. The interaction of different policies, e.g., the policy mix, is also considered. The highly authoritative volume offers a unique overview and synthesis of the available knowledge on innovation policy impacts. It will be indispensable reading for scholars as well as policy makers interested in this relatively new and rapidly growing field of public policy.'' --Jan Fagerberg, University of Oslo, Norway