Are innovation systems complex systems?

The aim of the paper is to address the issue of innovation systems in order to determine in how far they constitute complex systems. Innovation systems are generally used by economists interested in depicting technological changes as well as the emergence of new fields in terms of knowledge, services or business models as an ensemble of re-sources committed to interrelated activities. Interestingly, only little importance has been given until now by evolutionary economics to the systemic (and thus complex) character of innovation systems.