Ecosystem policy roadmapping

•This study explores how public innovation agencies use roadmaps to promote ecosystem creation and the advancement required to develop and commercialise systemic innovations•Three years of action research in the main Brazilian Public Innovation Agency contributed to building eight roadmaps.•The action research investigates a real-world situation and its transformation, yet its generalization is limited.•We proposed a framework to integrate ecosystem policy and roadmapping and implement it in real-world situations•Our framework provides distinct features and tools, to customise the generic roadmap template and roadmapping process for ecosystem policy in an innovation agency. Despite the wealth of research on roadmapping and innovation policy, gaps remain concerning how public innovation agencies use roadmaps to promote ecosystem creation and the advancement required to develop and commercialise systemic innovations. These call for an ecosystem policy perspective, in which the main policy goal is to provide the right approach to support interdependent groups of organisations that explore radical innovations capable of transforming and creating new markets. We propose a new roadmapping approach to promote ecosystem creation and development based on action research in the main Brazilian Public Innovation Agency. Such action research investigates a real-world situation and its transformation, yet its generalization is limited. We recommend that future research tests our framework in different contexts.