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Starting from the co-evolutionary development of innovation practice, theory and policy, five functions are identified that play a crucial role in the management of present-day innovation processes: (1) management of interfaces, (2) (de-)construction and organising (innovation) systems, (3) providing a platform for learning and experimenting, (4) providing an infrastructure for strategic intelligence and (5) stimulating demand articulation, strategy and vision development. From a first analysis of innovation policy instrument portfolios, it is concluded that the already existing instruments only cover a small part of the five "systemic" functions. Furthermore it is concluded that the portfolios are heavily dominated by financial instruments. It is argued that the development of a (relatively) new type of instrument, the systemic instruments, should be furthered in order to tune the instrument portfolio better to the needs of actors …