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Innovation policy transformed?: Unveiling a new paradigm through natural language processing

Author

Listed:
  • Jan Einhoff
  • Caroline Paunov

Abstract

Innovation policy is changing. No longer focused solely on growth and competitiveness, today’s strategies increasingly address societal challenges such as the green transition, digitalisation, and social inclusion. This paper provides the quantitative evidence of this shift, analysing STI strategies from 24 OECD countries using natural language processing techniques. It finds that goals linked to societal impact now make up over 40% of strategies’ topics — more than twice that of traditional objectives. New policy approaches, including joint governance, foresight, and agility, are also gaining ground. This change in innovation policy is mainly driven by the prominence of green transition goals in strategies (18.6%), followed by social and regional inclusion (9.9%) and digitalisation (9.5%). New STI policy approaches are also prominently featured with references to joint governance (5.4%), policy agility (5.2%) – such as foresight and evaluation – and directional policy (2.3%).

Suggested Citation

  • Jan Einhoff & Caroline Paunov, 2025. "Innovation policy transformed?: Unveiling a new paradigm through natural language processing," OECD Science, Technology and Industry Working Papers 2025/21, OECD Publishing.
    • Handle: RePEc:oec:stiaaa:2025/21-en
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    innovation and technology policy; natural language processing; topic modelling;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L52 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy - - - Industrial Policy; Sectoral Planning Methods
    • O25 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Development Planning and Policy - - - Industrial Policy
    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives
    • O38 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Government Policy
    • Q55 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environmental Economics: Technological Innovation
    • C88 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Data Collection and Data Estimation Methodology; Computer Programs - - - Other Computer Software

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