The article takes up the main questions developed in the introduction and endeavours to give a synthetic account of the findings in the various country studies in this special issue of SPP. In a nutshell, one can see an impressive account of reform activities concerning the improvement of the political coordination of knowledge and innovation policies. It turns out that internal coordination by way of a superministry might not be the optimal solution for coordination problems. External coordination under the influence of ‘moral contracts’ at the top-level of decision-making on the ministerial level and newly designed and delegated coordinating bodies at the agency level might be better ways to proceed. Policy-makers have to pay attention though to keep the balance between the pressing need for better political coordination and the need for an autonomous development of basic research, higher education, professional education, and technological application.