Introduction

When the first edition of this book was published in 1992, the concept of ‘national innovation system’ was known only by a handful of scholars and policymakers. Over a period of 15 years, there has been a rapid and wide diffusion of the concept. Giving ‘Google’ the text strings ‘national innovation system(s)’ and ‘national system(s) of innovation’ you end up with almost one million references. Going through the references, you find that most of them are recent and that many of them are related to innovation policy efforts at the national level while others refer to new contributions in social science.

Using Google Scholar (May 2007), we find that more than 2,000 scientific publications have referred to the different editions of Lundvall (1992). Economists, business economists, economic historians, sociologists, political scientists and especially economic geographers have utilized the concept to explain and understand phenomena related to innovation and competence building.

In this chapter we argue that during the process of diffusion there has been a distortion of the concept as compared to the original versions as developed by Christopher Freeman and the IKE group in Aalborg. Often policymakers and scholars have applied a narrow understanding of the concept and this has given rise to so-called ‘innovation paradoxes’, which leave significant elements of innovation-based economic performance unexplained.

Such a bias is reflected in studies of innovation that focus on science-based innovation and on the formal technological infrastructure and in policies aiming almost exclusively at stimulating R&D efforts in hi-tech sectors.

Without a broad definition of the national innovation system encompassing individual, organizational and interorganizational learning, it is impossible to establish the link from innovation to economic growth. A double focus is needed where attention is given not only to the science infrastructure but also to institutions/ organizations that support competence building in labour markets, education and working life. This is especially important in the current era of the globalizing learning economy (Lundvall and Johnson 1994; Lundvall and Borras 1998; Archibugi and Lundvall 2001).