The study of institutions and innovation is currently high on the agenda of the social sciences. There is growing concern about how the institutional framework of societies leads to variation in their innovation systems. Around the world, countries have set ambitious plans to drive innovation and move towards a knowledge driven economy. Social and institutional backgrounds differing significantly across countries induce and allow different pathways to the business of innovation despite the homogenizing forces of science technology, finance and commerce. This book investigates aspects where mutual country institutions could learn or even strongly collaborate or else where the country institutions should necessarily follow singular track. Contributors from Russia, India and a few other countries look for policies and institutions that encourages creation of an economic and social environment helping boost the capacity for innovation, ranks their relative importance, and how do they interact with each other, and how successful have countries been in identifying and adopting them. The book is a rich collection of diverse aspects of innovation; socio-economic and technological, how they are inter-linked and how at several occasions institutional mechanisms have played a central role.

Kasturi Mandal.: NISTAD, New Delhi

Nadia Asheulova.: Institute for the History of Science and Technology St. Petersburg Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences

Svetlana G. Kirdina.: Institute of Economics Russian Academy of Sciences,

http://www.nistads.res.in/index.php/publications/books/127-books-2014