TY - JOUR AB - Purpose Innovation and technology development policy-making naturally encounters numerous uncertainties and complexities, especially in developing countries, for the sake of the prevailing prospect of decision makers focusing on hard evidences, and neglecting key and effective social ones; in this research, a context-based method by means of Q-methodology was designed to facilitate policy-making for complex systems by bridging between policy and practices (latent in viewpoints) through providing context-based evidences.Design/methodology/approach Due to the nature of knowledge-based systems, the performance of Innovation and Technology Development (ITD) systems is highly dependent on the standpoints of key players/stakeholders of the system. In consideration of Iran’s economy characteristics, Upstream Oil and Gas (UOG) Industry, which is one of the complex Large Technical Systems (LTS), was selected as a case study. Regarding the features of LTSs, the designed model was completed by adding hierarchical clustering method, as well as using the framework of innovation and technology learning transition model to analyze the results.Findings The results showed the capability of the model in providing credible evidences to inform policy-making processes.Originality/value This study is one of the first real experiences which used Q-method for providing evidence-based policy-making model in a complex Large Technical System, namely, Upstream Oil and Gas (UOG) Industry. VL - 11 IS - 1 SN - 2053-4620 DO - 10.1108/JSTPM-07-2018-0074 UR - https://doi.org/10.1108/JSTPM-07-2018-0074 AU - Ghazinoory S. Sepehr AU - Tatina Shiva AU - Goodarzi Mehdi PY - 2019 Y1 - 2019/01/01 TI - Innovation policy-making in the upstream oil and gas industry as a large technical system under economic transition T2 - Journal of Science and Technology Policy Management PB - Emerald Publishing Limited SP - 107 EP - 128 Y2 - 2024/04/19 ER -