National policy councils for science, technology, and innovation: A scheme for structural definition and implementation

Abstract

AbstractNational policy councils for science, technology, and innovation have become a common institutional arrangement in supporting governments to overcome the problems of coordination derived from the complexity of national innovation systems. These organizations are expected to involve stakeholders with strategic capacity in defining long-term goals for science, technology, and innovation, to coordinate efforts and to monitor execution. However, governments face several options to devise the proper council for their purposes, and the absence of a common framework may induce theoretical and analytical difficulties. This exploratory and descriptive study proposes a scheme for defining the structure of such a council and a comprehensive approach that is based on the novel Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) database; analyzing the results obtained for thirty-one countries. The results obtained from the index confirm heterogeneity, while the clustering suggests three types of councils. The proposed scheme provides a standard tool for the study and implementation of these councils.