Innovation systems can be defined in a variety of ways: they can be national, regional, sectoral, or technological. They all involve the creation, diffusion, and use of knowledge. Systems consist of components, relationships among these, and their characteristics or attributes. The focus of this paper is on the analytical and methodological issues arising from various system concepts. There are three issues that stand out as problematic. First, what is the appropriate level of analysis for the purpose at hand?

This paper is an attempt to take stock of the authors' work. In Section 2, the authors reflect upon the emergence and fairly rapid diffusion of the concept ‘national system of innovation’ as well as related concepts. In Section 3,  they describe how the Aalborg-version of the concept evolved by a combination of ideas that moved from production structure towards including all elements and relationships contributing to innovation and competence building.

There is increasing evidence that public organizations dedicated exclusively to research and development (R&D) in agribusiness need systematic management tools to incorporate the uncertainties and complexities of technological and nontechnological factors of external environments in its long-term strategic plans. The major issues are: What will be the agribusiness science and technology (S&T) needs be in the future? How to prepare in order to meet these needs?

The private sector dominates biotechnology research in industrialized countries, but there are major market failures in developing countries in accessing the new tools and technologies. The public sector, national and international, will have to play a major role in filling this gap. This paper provides an overview of options that countries of different sizes and capacities can employ to gain access to the research tools and technologies that they need to address issues of relevance to poor producers and consumers.