National Innovation Systems and Industry Science Relationships in Europe

Globalisation means radical changes in foreign affairs and consequently in tariffs. Domestic markets are no longer sanctuaries for big firms which are more and more multinational in their ownership, governance, scope and aims. All these evolutions challenge the relevance of the "national" innovation system concept whereas American authors doubt if the American innovation system will be able to maintain its high level of performance as all of the central components of the innovation system now are undergoing change. Structural changes in the national systems of innovation system, are not occurring in isolation and may well result in some "convergence" in structure which would imply that the raison d'être of the NIS analysis could disappear. The European integration sets up another challenge to the NIS analysis. What will come out from the old national innovation systems whereas there are currently three institutional settings to take into account to deal with industry science relationship? After reviewing some threats against the NIS, the paper shows that a great deal of globalisation is actually Europeanisation even if the European law framework is still very sketchy and analyses the possible emerging European innovation system. It insists on the increasing human capital mobility in high tech sectors and supply some evidence of an emerging European innovation systems. The small country case is also analysed with its variants as it appears when looking at Portugal and Austria. Simultaneously if the project driven ISR seems obsolete, innovation policies will more and more relying on the financing of basic research as well as on local, national, and European infrastructure. In the European case, it seems also important to improve the links between the higher education system and the SMEs.