Resumen
Innovation is an extensively used term in modern management jargon, especially due to its capacity of giving competitive advantage to whoever is able to develop it. Consequently, due to this ?special power?, innovation has been pursued by organizations worldwide, especially in the private sector. The strengths of innovation were also perceived by governments, as they began developing public policies oriented to foster innovation. In order to understand this phenomenon, this research studies the experience of two cities located in two different countries, Brazil and Germany, that are recognized nationally as having well succeeded public policies aimed on developing innovation. The paper is based on an in depth qualitative research and its main theoretical foundations are based on the contributions of Isenberg (2010) on innovation, Dye (1972) and Sebatier (1986) on public policy and Cantwell and Mudambi (2000), Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff (2000) and Etzkowitz (2008) on innovative public policies. Despite all political, social and economic differences between Brazil and Germany, the strategies implemented in both cities followed a similar pattern and were successful in fostering an ecosystem that enabled the development of companies that generated innovations in products, services and processes. The outcomes, in both regions, were related to economic development, and creation of strong cluster of highly innovative and competitive organizations.