ABSTRACT The national audit institutions are increasingly focused on not only the audit activity but also how to support good organizational governance. In addition, innovation is a key element of sustainable development throughout the world, however capturing innovation through an audit is complicated. First, developing an effective and innovative national audit policy and then implementing these processes is an important and innovative step toward improved innovation governance. This article is based on policy implementation theory combined with the principles of science and technology innovation. These concepts are combined to analyze how the United States' primary audit institution (GAO) carries out the innovation policy implementation audits, and how these activities compare to similar activities in China. At the present time, China's implementation of the innovation policy audit has both a scientific theory foundation and it is done in accord with the current trends found in other international agencies governing audit procedures. Policy development and the implementation of real-time auditing can be a good mechanism for optimizing the benefit from audits. However China's current innovation policy implementation audit procedures have some key defects and deficiencies, such as legal authority, audit target, audit result usage, among others. Thus there is a need to improve innovation audits in China, and in turn transfer the institution's innovation strategic goals into reality. Keywords innovation policy implementation, real-time audit, innovation policy implementation mechanism, audit institution