The national innovation system is an extensive entity comprising the producers and users of new information and knowledge and know-how and the various ways in which they interact. At the core of the innovation system are education, research and product development, and knowledge-intensive business and industry. Varied international cooperation is a feature running through the system.

The producers of new knowledge include universities and polytechnics, research institutes and business enterprises. The users are mostly enterprises, private citizens, and decision-makers and authorities responsible for societal and economic development. The role of scientific information in societal and economic development has been constantly growing, which increases the significance of cooperation and networking both between the public and private sectors and within the sectors.

A key task for science, technology and innovation policies is to ensure a balanced development of the innovation system and strengthening cooperation within it. Alongside this, increasingly important are also cooperation relationships with other sectors, such as economic, industrial, labour, environmental and regional policies or social welfare and health care services. The prerequisites for knowledge-based development are created within different policy sectors.

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