Adapting a policy of support in innovation for specific sectors

At a time when France is creating new research and innovation systems such as the Higher Council for science and technology (Haut conseil pour la science et la technologie) and the National Agency for research (Agence nationale de la recherche), it is noteworthy that there is a obvious shortage of methods for choosing appropriate themes and programmes. Finding such methods should be encouraged. In the context of the forward-looking operation FutuRIS, Vincent Charlet and Germain Sanz have carried out investigations in several economic sectors to help decision-makers with their choices. They suggest an analytical grid which allows one to characterise the relevance of a support to a given sector, to choose the tools of public policy which are adapted to its characteristics, and to envisage the foreseeable consequences of public support in this sector. Such a method allows one to mark out and systematise decision-making and to make strategic choices more simply and with greater transparency.