DEVELOPMENT

in order to make the R&D potential correspond better
to the needs of the economy. The crisis has accelerated
changes in this area, making standing water
move. This focal point can also be combined with
attempts to help better commercialise the knowledge
that has accumulated in the research institutions of
the public sector. The latter can occur through both
domestic and foreign companies.
• Various measures to assist innovative domestic small
and medium enterprises (SME), especially technology-centred
SMEs, i.e. simplifying their establishment,
supplying them with venture capital, connecting
them more effectively to the state’s existing
research base, helping SMEs enter foreign markets,
etc. This course is not limited to high tech start-ups
at the state’s universities and research institutions. It
seems that this type of activity has been especially
topical recently (e.g. in Austria, New Zealand, etc.).
• Measures for attracting innovative foreign-owned
companies, especially high-tech ones, to the state,
and developing cooperation with them, including, by
increasing the connections between these companies
and companies based on domestic capital (knowledge
transfer). This course can be associated with
large multinationals as well as domestic start-ups.
• Innovation-based cooperation between the state and
leader firms based on domestic capital. If in large
states, like France, Germany or the U.S., this is a
very important course, in our sample, which is comprised
of smaller states, it is more clearly apparent
only in South Korea, and earlier also in Finland (in
cooperation with Nokia). It seems that in the case
of smaller states, there are simply few domestic
tech-based leader firms, even Switzerland’s pharmaceutical
firms are dealt with more as international
firms than domestic ones.
• Supporting various enterprise clustering and networking
initiatives related to innovation. At this
point, it should be stressed that, in the case of most
cluster promotion programmes, innovation-related
cooperation is only one type of cooperation that the
corresponding programmes aspired to. In the case of
innovation-related cooperation, cross-border clusters
are the ones that tend to be actualised.
• Supporting foreign cooperation and foreign expansion
related to R&D and innovation (e.g. in the direction
of China or India). This activity includes involving
one’s own technology-based companies – making it
possible for them to plug into promising projects in
foreign countries – as well as, for instance, attracting
foreign firms to one’s technology incubators.
• Searching for new areas for innovative development
and growth; launching (experimental) activities in
these areas (the state together with the business
community). In many states, the conclusion was
reached that previous policy measures were too universal
and vague, and based thereon, the aspiration
developed to strengthen a sector-specific approach
in innovation policy and, to a greater extent, to
direct measures to new growth areas.
A series of changes are related to (higher) education, for
example, the improvement of the higher education system
(the improvements may differ from state to state), additional
investments in education, etc.
4.5.7
New trends in innovation polices by
countries
Finland’s innovation policy is famous for its achievements
in combining the efforts of businesses and universities, as
well as research institutions, and the development of its
national cluster policy. A very important engine in the
innovation policy was Nokia, for which very many SMEs
worked. Today, as a result of the economic crisis (the R&D
allocations in the national budget have been decreased
somewhat) and Nokia’s worsened situation, the focal
points of the innovation policies have started to change.
Greater importance is now being placed on searches for
new fields of growth, and also, if necessary, on changing
the innovation policy to be more sector-based. More attention
is also being paid to attracting foreign investors in a
deliberate manner. It seems that the policy of defining priority
clusters, at the national level, has been discontinued.
It is being stressed that clusters are, by nature, a regional
phenomena, and therefore, clusters programmes should be
worked out “locally”, at the level of Finland’s largest cities,
and naturally, together with entrepreneurial circles. The
more promising programmes that develop, in this way,
will then get some degree of support from the state.
Characteristic of Denmark, are a highly developed
knowledge base (universities, higher technical schools),
on the one hand, and a business sphere that is mostly
based on small and medium enterprises. An oft-heard
slogan in Denmark’s innovation policy is that Danish
companies must be among the most innovative in the
world, and considering the state’s distinctive nature, this
slogan applies primarily to Denmark’s SMEs. The central
concepts of the innovation policy are collaboration
between companies and universities, as well as various
development networks. Several dozen state-supported
development networks joining universities and companies
operate in Denmark, which combine measures as the
establishment of research and technology consortiums,
other cooperation programmes involving companies and
universities as well as voucher-based assistance to companies.
Research parks and business incubators play a significant
role. The idea of networks is also being developed
at subnational (regional economic growth forums) and
supernational levels (within the framework of Denmark’s
globalisation strategy, help is provided to companies for
their foreign expansion endeavours).
It has been said about Austria that, despite the state’s
high innovation indicators, the efficiency of converting the
existing knowledge base into economic results is too low.
Of the policy shifts that occurred during the recent crisis,
the most important has been the sharpened focus on
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