Seminar paper from the year 2005 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: 80%=A, Gotland University (Baltic Sea Management Academy), course: Comparative International Management, language: English, abstract: “Research creates knowledge. Knowledge that expands our awareness and changes our perception of ourselves. Knowledge that shapes our thinking and gives us orientation” [BMBF, 2004]. The research of today leads to innovations of tomorrow. Mainly, every item we use in daily life emerged from research which scientists have done once. This paper gives an overview of the innovative systems of Germany and France. The main features such as scientific research, funding, link to foreign institutes, commercial orientation of research centres, labour mobility as well as the venture capital system and the national technology policy will be described briefly for each of the above mentioned countries. Additionally, there is a comparison between these features in Germany and France.