Comparison of innovation policies in selected European, Asian and ...

coherence is difficult to achieve and a trade-off will be the freedom of individual policy
domains to exercise influence and the freedom to negotiate for efficient policy compromises.
Some countries will prefer this type of adversarial approach to policy making continues.
Score 5 – Finland, Estonia, Ireland.
These countries have good horizontal coherence. In some cases, there was a merger of
ministries and a strong framework has been put in place. Estonia has a relatively new
innovation system and has not encountered problems and Ireland reports very strong cohesion
across a complex array of agencies. Interestingly, Ireland does not have a well developed
public research institute system and is heavily influenced by foreign funded R&D and EUsupported
R&D. This suggests policy makers are not so much concerned with creating new
policy as ensuring that they adhere to external influences.
Score 4 – Japan, Belgium, Switzerland.
In these countries horizontal coherence is compromised to a small extent. For Japan, their
high-level council, the Council for Science and Technology Policy, has limited power and is
mainly a watchdog. For Belgium, their federal government has a complex task, more so than
most countries, and is focussed on coordination of several regions and communities. In
Switzerland, two main ministries create scope for some disharmony.
Score 3 - Korea, Netherlands, Denmark, Australia.
These countries recognise horizontal coherence as an issue and are taking formal steps to
improve it. Some countries such as Korea and Denmark have merged multiple ministries to
form super ministries and this supports coherence.
Score 2 - Iceland, Italy, Slovenia, Sweden, Austria, NZ pre-chg, NZ post-chg, Norway,
Portugal, Chile, Czech Republic.
These countries recognise horizontal coherence as an issue. Note that 2010 reforms in NZ are
not designed to radically change horizontal coherence so much as to improve vertical
coherence and stakeholder involvement (see later).
On this dimension, the European Innovation Leaders have scores ranging from two to five
that is, there appears to be no relationship between high level of innovation and horizontal
coherence.
Delivery agency influence in priority setting
Delivery agency influence on priority setting occurs when the agency responsible for
delivering funding for research also influences funding policy.
Score 5 – Finland, NZ post – chg, Netherlands.
In these countries the delivery agency explicitly plays a key role in setting policy priorities.
The influence of policy delivery agencies – such as funding agencies – can reflect many
different factors. The government may have a very pragmatic approach to policy and prefer
that policy is influenced by agencies which implement policy and the researchers and business
people they connect with. Possibly this explains the strong role of TEKES in Finland and
SenterNoven in Netherlands. In New Zealand, following the merger of MoRST and FRST,
the former ministry and the former delivery agency will be one and the same. This is designed
to reduce fragmentation and overlapping policy decision-making.
Score 4 – Japan, Sweden, Norway, Portugal, Chile, Czech Republic
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