An Analytical Introduction to the Generations of Innovation Policy Studies; Intellectual Origins and Policy Strategies

Innovation policy studies contain a broad mix of approaches with different intellectual foundations on why and how to lead innovation in the interests of society. The purpose of this article is to identify and describe the mainstream theories during the historical evolution of Innovation policy studies and to explain the differences between the responses of these theories to the main questions of innovation policy. In this way, a collection of highly cited research publications on science, technology, and innovation policy from 1950 to 2020 has been studied and thematically analyzed. As the result of this study, by extracting key themes from research publications, six generations of innovation policy introduced, each of them emerged and expanded in a different historical period, and are from the first generation (the 1940s) to the sixth (present decade), respectively: Linear; Traditional mission-oriented; Normative; Systematic; Transformative; And New mission-oriented innovation policy. The theoretical evolution of innovation policy generations shows that along with broadening the meaning of innovation and identifying more reasons for its failure, more reasons and justifications for the government's role in compensating the innovation failures have been introduced. This study shows that based on the insights of recent generations of studies, the innovation policy agenda should be formulated with the participation of different social groups, in various industrial and social fields and considering social and environmental costs.