**5. Conclusions**

Innovation is a central element that Latin American countries have adopted to promote economic and sustainable development. Promotion initiatives for innovation have had a historical process marked by political, cultural, and social factors. On the other hand, different events and forms of thought that emerged in different periods impacted the ways of promoting initiatives for many years or decades such as the aversion to developing non-horizontal policies for developing specific sectors or clusters.

Modern concepts of promoting innovation, based on territoriality and regional innovation systems, imply new challenges for Latin American countries and regions. Regarding the promotion of initiatives to encourage innovation, the regions have shown different levels of development. Some regions have more activity and experience, even testing different initiatives. In other regions, the capacity to implement policies is almost nonexistent. The maturity times to implement initiatives can be very short in the latter. In some cases, by adopting specific policy approaches late, they find themselves in the dilemma of making changes and adopting new approaches that are being adopted in other, more advanced regions.

Political empowerment and the capacity of regional or local governments are crucial in national innovation policies. Developing these capabilities has become a
