What innovation policy mix does matter for which countries? Patterns emerging from multidimensional analysis on STIP Compass platform

An increasing consensus is shared among scholars on the relevance of policy mix in supporting innovation processes. An essential support for a comparative analysis of innovation policies is provided by STIP Compass. As a joint initiative of the European Commission and OECD, STIP Compass contains taxonomies of policies, databases, monitoring tools, and links between various data sources. The paper addresses two research questions: the first one concerns the way to single out a pattern of innovation policy mix. The second one specifically focuses on the dimensions in the narratives adopted to describe the current policy issues. The paper refers to the STIP Compass database downloaded on 24th August 2019. Results can be browsed by using the navigation on Tableau Public. Being aware that the potential of STIP Compass relies on the quality of information that is entered by the countries, this paper aims at enhancing the awareness of both scholars and policy makers involved in the innovation policy field by suggesting its use to outline patterns of policy mix across countries. Although the database is incomplete and currently under revision, the exercise undertaken in this paper outlines methods for text analysis that will be applied to the new updated edition of STIP Compass, when available. One urgent message is drawn from the analysis undertaken in this paper: aiming at providing an effective analytical framework a tools for innovation policies in Europe, the European Commission cannot overlook that subnational policies need to be entered in STIP Compass, and this could be done in a straightforward way, by using information on regional innovation policies already available in the DG Regio.