The focus and instruments of innovation policy have changed fundamentally over the last decades. Recently transformative innovative policy has caught the attention of scholars and policy makers, arguing that this is a new shift in the policy discourse. Even though grand challenges such as global warming and migration flows, as well as technological change such as artificial intelligence and industry 4.0 have fired the debate on transformative innovation policies in recent years, it has a long history – even going back to Schumpeter. This book chapter unfolds the historical and conceptual roots of transformative innovation policy, compares critically the different strands of literature, and discusses important questions for future research.