The Role of Innovation Policy in the National Innovation System: The Case of Estonia

The article highlights the unifying role of innovation policy in shaping and ensuring the functioning of a national innovation system. The first part of the article deals with the need for public sector intervention in innovation processes. A new national innovation system model that reflects the unifying role of innovation policy is developed. The second part presents the result of the empirical analyses of the structure and influence of innovation policy and its relations with the innovation-related activities of the enterprise sector. Macro-quantitative approach is used as the actors of innovation policy are governments. The problem of assuring the robustness of statistical models will be solved by using the principal component analysis (PCA) method. The functioning of Estonian national innovation system is assessed on the basis of robust statistical models of innovation policy structure and influence.