Human resources have an embodied stock of human capital – defined as the knowledge, skills, competences and attributes that facilitate the creation of personal, social and economic well-being – which is an essential input to innovation. Given the importance of human resources for innovation, key objectives of human resource policies have been to raise the level of knowledge and skills of the labour force. Particular policy objectives have included meeting the need for skills for innovation by enlarging the supply of the highly skilled workforce and by facilitating its mobility in order to optimise the use of human resources, to facilitate the cross-fertilisation of ideas and learning, and to address structural mismatches of demand for and supply of skills.