European National Innovation Policies: A Review of Policy Designs and Scopes

This study examines how European Union member countries, plus the United Kingdom, have approached the common challenge of digital transformation within their respective national contexts, answering the call of the Digitizing European Industry Initiative. They have implemented diverse policy designs tailored to the characteristics of their National Systems of Innovation, addressing different priorities, despite the shared pillars emphasized by the Digitizing European Industry Initiative and the prevalence of SMEs in the industry. Some academic articles and institutional reports have studied the different national priorities within the national policies for digital transformation. Nevertheless, none of the existing literature investigates the differences in the national policy designs for digitalization and Industry 4.0 in Europe. This chapter aims to address this gap by comparing the policies, examining the implemented policy designs, identifying specific country features influencing such designs, and clustering these policies according to these dimensions.