Transcript Document
2014 TAFTIE Policy Forum
„Measuring innovation”
New trends and challenges in innovation
measurement
Fred Gault
UNU-MERIT and TUT-IERI
Brussels, November 25, 2014
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Definition of innovation
• For statistical purposes, the definition of innovation is taken from the
Oslo Manual (OECD/Eurostat 2005). www.oecd.org/sti/oslomanual/
• An innovation is the implementation of a new or significantly improved
product (good or service), or process, a new marketing method, or a
new organizational method in business practices, workplace
organization or external relations (OECD/Eurostat 2005, para. 146).
• A common feature of an innovation is that it must have been
implemented. A new or improved product is implemented when it is
introduced on the market (to potential users). New processes,
marketing methods or organizational methods are implemented when
they are brought into actual use in the firm’s operations
(OECD/Eurostat 2005, para. 150).
• Innovation can only happen in a firm, but firms do not act in isolation
Gault (2012)
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Domain of definition – Aggregate estimates
Included
• Business sector (formal)
• Firms as innovators including
user innovators
• Private non-profit
organizations
• Business sector (informal)
• Question about the production
unit
Excluded
• Public sector
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Government departments
Education institutions
Health institutions
Research institutions
• Consumers
• Groups not constituted as a
firm
• Social interest groups
• Religious, common interest, …
• Professional interest groups
• Communities of practice
• Peer groups
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Innovation now
• Firms innovate
• More firms innovate than do research and development (R&D)
• Innovative firms are widely distributed –
• R&D performers are concentrated in a few countries, in a few industries in
those countries and in a few firms in those industries. Measurement is
different for innovation and for R&D
• Innovation measurement (Oslo) is not normative
• Measure innovation and then do analysis to identify
• Correlations (repeated cross-sectional surveys)
• Causal links (longitudinal panel data)
• Innovation systems
• Complex, dynamic, non-linear in response to policy intervention,
global
• There are several time scales
• There is no single indicator to measure innovation
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Innovation systems
• Actors
• Governments, education and research institutions, firms, …
• Activities
• R&D, invention, diffusion of technologies and practices, design, HR
development
• Linkages
• Contracts, collaborations, co-publications, grants and monitoring, …
• Outcomes
• Jobs, growth, productivity, inclusion, greater equity, …
• Impacts
• Wellbeing, culture change, global influence, …
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Innovation policy
• Policy approaches
• Innovators (firms)
• Regional
• Sectoral
• Technologies or practices
• Linkages
• Flows of energy, materiel, people, knowledge, …
• Framework conditions
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• Short term (one mandate)
• Longer term (more than one mandate)
• Unexpected/uncontrolled events
Look at https://www.innovationpolicyplatform.org/ and see what countries are
doing with innovation policy
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Building an innovation policy
• Key questions
– Purpose and targets
• Jobs and growth, equity, inclusiveness, …
– Scope
• Sector, region, technology, science, innovation … policy
• Mix of these and more?
– Components
• Few? Some? Many?
– Consultation and collaboration
• Input from the private sector, international organizations, civil society, …
– Governance
• At what level(s)?
• Key questions guide evaluation leading to policy learning
• Indicators contribute to this process
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Changes in indicators?
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Headline Indicator 2013
• A composite indicator
• Number of Patent Co-operation Treaty (PCT) applications per million
of GDP (Measures technological innovation?)
• Employment in knowledge-intensive activities (KIA) as a percentage of
total employment
(Measures skills needed to innovate?)
• Contribution to the trade balance of high-tech products and mediumtech products to the total trade balance and knowledge intensive
services as a share of total services exports
(Measures competiveness of knowledge-intensive goods and
services?)
• Employment in fast-growing firms of innovative sectors
(Measures the capacity of a country to transform its
economy?)
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Change the definition
• A common feature of an innovation is that it must have
been implemented. A new or improved product is
implemented when it is introduced on the market (to
potential users). New processes, marketing methods or
organizational methods are implemented when they are
brought into actual use in the firm’s operations
(OECD/Eurostat 2005, para. 150).
• Consider changing the definition to include the
• Public sector
• Consumers – if they share the knowledge
• Still work to be done on social innovation
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Promoting innovation at project level
What is the outcome?
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Return on investment in innovation
• Question posed by the government of Ontario to the
Council of Canadian Academies
• How can the actual and potential outcomes and impacts of Ontario
government spending on innovation and scientific activities be
measured including but not limited to the effects on GDP in Ontario,
generation and transfer of knowledge; creation of new ventures; and
access to seed, development and growth capital?
• See what the Panel responded in Innovation Impacts: Measurement and
Assessment CCA(2013)
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Readings
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CCA(2013), Innovation Impacts: Measurement and Assessment, The Expert Panel on the
Socio-Economic Impacts of Innovation Investments, Ottawa: Council of Canadian
Academies.
Gault, Fred (2010), Innovation Strategies for a Global Economy: Development,
Implementation, Measurement and Management, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar and
Ottawa: IDRC. http://www.idrc.ca/EN/Resources/Publications/Pages/IDRCBookDetails.aspx?PublicationID=45
Gault, Fred (2012), ‘User Innovation and the Market’, Science and Public Policy, 39:
118-128.
Gault, Fred, (ed.) (2013), Handbook of Innovation Indicators and Measurement,
Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar.
NRC (2014), Capturing change in science, technology and innovation indicators:
Improving indicators to inform policy, Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
OECD (2010), Measuring Innovation: A New Perspective, Paris: OECD.
OECD/Eurostat (2005), Oslo Manual, Guidelines for Collecting and Interpreting
Innovation Data, Paris: OECD.
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Thank You
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