Interactions science-technologie : quelles politiques publiques ?

This article proposes an analysis of the science-technology interactions. The first part is historical and focuses on the transformations that resulted from the passage of a prescriptive knowledge (techniques) to a scientifically based knowledge (technology). The contemporaneous relations between science and technology are much more characterized by their interdependence, in the sense that they are in a co-evolution process, rather than by the linear model in which the richness of the industrial applications results from the development of an autonomous fundamental research activity. The second perspective, more policy-oriented, tries to explain the persistent gap between the United States and the European Union in terms of their GDP per capita and productivity growth, in the period preceding the last financial and economic clash. The reviewed explanations of this gap include the performance of the academic activity, the gap between the scientific knowledge and its transformation in the economy, the research and development intensity, the importance of the churning effect in the destructive creation process and the role of the young innovative firms.