Innovation policy mix in a multi-level context: The case of the Baltic Sea Region countries

Abstract

Innovation policies are no longer the responsibility of national-level governments alone, because regions and supra-national organizations also implement these policies. This paper aims to identify the character of the relations between different government levels which implement innovation policy in six Baltic Sea Region (BSR) countries (Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania). Expansion of innovation policy to different government levels may create a risk of overlapping between various initiatives, therefore a distribution of tasks and policy coordination is important. The theoretical background of the paper focuses on the concept of policy mix which emphasizes the role of interactions between different policies in different dimensions. Innovation policy strategies and in-depth interviews with policy-makers were analysed to characterize the multi-level innovation policy mixes. The results demonstrate that innovation policy mixes in the BSR countries are not characterized by incoherence or overlapping, however, strong mutual reinforcement cannot be identified either.