Technical superiority is one of the keys to military domination. Thus, defense industries have supported the development of increasingly efficient systems and made significant contributions to technical progress. However, since the late 1980s, defense industries� technological initiative has been questioned and new sources of innovation have been sought by turning to the civilian sphere. A duality was born from this marriage of defense and civil innovation which developed their synergies in order to improve the innovation process in both areas.

Dual Innovation Systems uses a systemic approach to investigate this dual approach to innovation and how it promotes improvements in the research and development processes of the defense and civilian areas. It also presents a variety of tools for measuring the performance of a dual innovation system.

François-Xavier Meunier is an entrepreneur and researcher in innovation economics at the Applied Economics Unit of ENSTA Paris, France. He develops tools for both the academic and professional spheres to evaluate and improve the innovation performance of technology companies.