Abstract
This paper deals with a hitherto unnoticed ‘theory-policy’ inconsistency. On the one hand, the relationship between innovation research and policy has often been portrayed as harmonic, mutually beneficial and co-evolving. On the other hand, several contributions suggest that the assumption of linearity is still highly influential among policymakers, even though innovation researchers have abandoned the linear model of innovation (LM) since the late 1980s. This paper is among the first to empirically substantiate the influence that the LM exercises in the contemporary innovation policy discourse. It does so by identifying repeated discursive patterns (e.g. topics) and their sentiments (i.e. positive, negative or neutral) in a vast corpus of documents (n=1,895) published by four policymaking organisations (European Commission, OECD, UNCTAD, and World Bank). It is shown that key aspects of the model in question are influential, often receiving positive sentiment in all four organisations. This finding raises crucial questions regarding the extent to which policy-makers understand the extant discourse on the transformative and mission-oriented innovation policies under the prism of the LM.