Countries deploy a variety of financial, regulatory and soft policy instruments to promote science-industry knowledge exchange. While these instruments are often discussed in isolation, they are implemented collectively and may reinforce and complement but also weaken or even negatively affect each other and add excessive complexity. This paper develops a conceptual framework to map policy instruments for knowledge exchange and assess the interactions between them. The framework also considers how national contexts and global trends influence the choice of policy instruments. Policy examples drawn from the EC-OECD STIP Compass database and from case studies show that there are significant differences across countries in the relative importance given to each policy instrument in terms of budget, target groups, eligibility criteria, time horizon and implementation. These differences are also a consequence of different country conditions.