Abdelkader Djeflat

Emerging Innovation Systems (EIS) rests on the premise that innovation systems need both strong policy impulses from government for innovation to effectively take place and adequate market dynamics. EIS is the prerequisite for innovation systems to operate in a conventional manner. In many developing countries, innovation systems construction takes place in a very specific environment characterized by the rise of a small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) sector but with little experience in the fields of R&D, relatively weak industrial performances in terms of productivity, and high level of obsolescence both in terms of human resources and equipment. While the approach in terms of innovation systems is real and attracts a great deal of attention from policy makers, very little work has been done on the way African countries could engage in a real Emergence policy of their innovation system in a sustainable manner. This contribution addresses the fundamental question of how innovation Emergence takes place in late industrializing countries such as African countries, both in terms of policies and conceptual framework. It draws from the Algerian experience and takes further the conceptual and theoretical approach that have been developed in earlier works on possible ways to trigger off innovation

Innovation, R&D, innovation Emergence, catch up, North African Economies, take off, National System of Innovation