Special Issue on Innovation and Standards.  New forms of innovation prompt a re-examination of how the strengths and weaknesses of national innovation systems are diagnosed. This is done in order to guide policy on supporting innovation and shaping the general conditions in which scientific and technical knowledge is put to economic use today. These general, "framework conditions", range from today's emerging global information infrastructures to the full gamut of regulatory and legal constraints operating at national and international levels. These include technical aspects related to standardisation, whose growing importance illustrates the emergence of new policy issues.