A national innovation policy mix comprises the measures that address the innovation policy challenges of the country in question. The data series of the Erawatch and INNO Policy TrendChart initiatives of the European Commission provide a unique opportunity to explore the profiles of the national innovation policy mixes and their evolution during the past decade. In this article, the innovation policy mix per country and changes in these mixes over time are identified. The analysis covers five main policy mix profiles of the EU Member States. An unexpected similarity and stability is found in the national innovation policy mixes of the Member States even though these countries face different innovation challenges. This reflects extensive transnational policy learning, which is a welcome development, but such a similarity among heterogeneous countries might indicate that innovation policies are not being tailored effectively to the real needs and situations in each Member State.

Observing the CEE members of the EU (EU10 countries) from a distance, they certainly used to share major structural similarities given their historical legacies, as well as certain 'unifying' effects of their transition to market economy and democracy. Yet, a closer look reveals important elements of diversity in (a) the structure of their national innovation system, (b) the direction of recent structural changes, (c) innovation performance, and (d) patterns of business-academia collaboration. Given this diversity one would assume that fairly different needs are identified in the EU10 countries, necessitating differentiated, 'tailored' policy responses. Yet, these countries follow the same STI policy rationale, namely the market failure argument, which itself can be seen as a unifying force. Actually, this is not unique to the EU10 countries: the science-push model of innovation is still highly influential in the STI policy circles both at the level of the EC and the member states, despite a rich set of research insights stressing the importance of non-R&D types of knowledge in innovation processes.

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