The European countries studied in this paper are all applying reforms designed to improve the diffusion and industrial application of the results of public research in order to stimulate private innovation. The present analysis of public action is based on four types of ideal conventions distinguished within the mutating national systems. The increasing pressure exerted by the conventions of the «Regulatory State» and the «Facilitator State» to the detriment of «Entrepreneur State» and to a lesser extent, the «Republic of Science» has led to an increasing diversification of collective action, which no longer depends so strongly on the national institutional framework as it did in the past.