Introduction to the special issue on "Innovation Systems Emergence to Take-off : what prospects for innovation-driven development in the South?"

"Innovation Emergence to Take off" rests on the premises that innovation systems need strong policy impulses and effective demand for innovation, i.e. simultaneous push and pull factors working in tandem. Innovation systems theory has long been characterized by the difficulty into using it in system construction (Johnson and Lundvall, 2003; Lundvall, 1992), yet many African and Latin American Countries have built their innovation systems a posteriori. When looking at advanced and emerging countries, notably the BRICS, where innovation is effectively taking place, a variety of situations exist (Abramovitz, 1986; Avnimelech and Teubal, 2006). Rich studies have been conducted within the catch up group in the Globelics network using sector specific approaches (Malerba and Nelson, 2010).