Introduction -- Methodology -- Policy contributions -- Theoretical contributions -- Discussion -- Conclusion

In the interest of providing the government policy makers and research managers with an appreciation of the scope, results and value of academic literature and to facilitate the formulation of policies that are informed by evidence, a systematic review was conducted recent academic literature on the impact of government investment in research and innovation. This review considers 50 articles published in leading academic journals between 2000 and 2012. To counter fragmentation in the literature and provide a synthesis that is as useful as possible, is structured opined in this article on two complementary types contributions: contributions to politics, researchers provide answers to practical issues concerning the presence, nature and extent of impact of specific types of investments; for his contributions to the theory, the researchers relate their empirical research on economic and organizational theories about the behavior and performance of socio-economic actors, to explain why and how the effects are achieved. Set out below is a brief description of the methodology used and also the discussion of the results obtained.