Europeanization of innovation policy in Central and Eastern Europe

Abstract

This article examines how innovation policies and the respective policy-making systems in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) have evolved since 1990 and the role that the European Union (EU) has played in these processes. We aim to show that the EU's impact on innovation policies in CEE has been highly positive in terms of reorienting economic policies generally towards more sustainable growth, and thus, Europeanization has rectified some problems inherited from the 1990s' fast and furious industrial restructuring. Europeanization itself, however, has exacerbated other problems of the 1990s and brought additional specific problems into innovation policy in CEE: firstly, an overemphasis on linear innovation and, secondly, weak administrative environment lacking policy skills for networking and long-term planning.