The new EU agricultural policy aims to strengthen actors' capacities for innovation by taking into account the complexity of innovation processes. This paper characterizes the key innovation support services (ISS) that support actors in innovating. In the EU AgriSpin project, we analyzed 57 case studies describing innovation processes. We used a common grid to characterize ISS. Our results show that ISS depends on the phase of the innovation. During the initial phases, there is a need for innovative support services (e.g. network building, support for the innovator). In the latter phases, there is a need for more conventional services (e.g. training, credit) at farm, value chain and territory level. Brokering functions and new services are key to supporting actors to innovate by facilitating interactions for the co-production of knowledge, codesign of technologies, and identification of new institutional arrangements.