Results of the 2011 UIS pilot data collection of innovation statistics

Abstract

The relationship between innovation and economic development is widely acknowledged. Innovation is a key element in the growth of output and productivity, and therefore crucial for poverty alleviation. While research and experimental development (R&D) plays a vital role in the innovation process, many of the related activities rely on highly-skilled workers, interactions with other firms and public research institutions, as well as an organizational structure that is conducive to learning and exploiting knowledge. These factors should be taken into account by policymakers. To this end, data are required to better understand innovation and its relation to economic growth, as well as to provide indicators for benchmarking national performance. Over the last few decades, work has been undertaken to establish analytical frameworks and guidelines for innovation studies. Efforts to standardize innovation definitions and indicators came to the forefront with the publication of the first version of the Oslo Manual (OM) by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in 1992. The manual pushed the measurement of innovation as a process, fostering the collection of comparable innovation indicators since its first edition. The UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) is striving to increase the availability of timely, accurate and policy-relevant statistics in the field of science, technology and innovation (STI) through the development of a database of cross-nationally comparable innovation statistics. To this end, the UIS launched a pilot data collection of innovation statistics in 2011 in order to prepare for the global data collection which will be launched in 2013. The pilot data collection was based on the definitions of the third edition of the Oslo Manual, covering four types of innovation in the business sector. Data were collected for manufacturing, services and total economic activities covered by each national innovation survey. However, this report focuses exclusively on cross-nationally comparable data for the manufacturing industry. It should be noted that there are certain limitations in comparisons between countries due to differences in the methodological procedures of the national innovation surveys. The pilot data collection sought to gather aggregate data from the most recent national innovation surveys in 19 selected countries. Countries were asked to complete the pilot questionnaire using grossed up 2 results of their national innovation surveys. The following 12 countries participated in the pilot data collection: Brazil, China, Colombia, Egypt, Ghana, Indonesia, Israel, Malaysia, the Philippines, the Russian Federation, South Africa and Uruguay. Eurostat has led the way in sustaining the production of internationally comparable data on innovation in enterprises through its Community Innovation Surveys (CIS). Based on the CIS, Eurostat produces innovation statistics for member states and candidate countries of the European Union, Iceland and Norway, which are frequently used for comparison in national innovation survey reports. Therefore, in order to enhance interpretation of the UIS pilot results, whenever possible, this paper compares the data collected with Eurostat's CIS3 results from 2006 and 2008.