Trends and challenges in demand-side innovation: a thematic report

"Trends and challenges in demand-side innovation policies in Europe" is the title of a paper unearthed by Chris Torrero, courtesy of the European Commmission's Enterprise and Industry website here. This is a "Thematic Report 2011 under Specific Contract for the Integration of INNO Policy TrendChart with ERAWATCH (2011-2012)". As the Commission website explains,

"Demand-side innovation policies are important policy instruments aiming to increase the demand for innovations, to improve the conditions for the uptake of innovations or to improve the articulation of demand . Their potential is widely recognised and actively promoted. 

The report aims:
• to identify the trends in the deployment of demand-side innovation policy at national level in the EU Member States during the period mid-2009 to mid-2011;
• to give an overview on recently introduced demand-side innovation policy measures and to ascertain if there are any observable patterns;
• to provide insights into how demand-side measures are being implemented;
• to analyse governance practices for coordinating between demand-side and supply-side measures".

You can read the whole report here.  Curiously, as Chris notes, in this 48-page document the word "patent" appears just once. Even more curiously, the word "invention" does not appear at all and there are just three mentions of "intellectual property".