When we talk about innovation, people define the concept differently – from just an idea, to something new, to a commercial success. In this lecture, the innovation concept will be defined from a statistical perspective. We will discuss a range of different indicators used for measuring innovation, from traditional Science & Technology indicators, including e.g. patents and Research & Development, to indicators using firm-level survey data, to approaches using big data. We then discuss how to use these indicators to inform policy makers to develop the right policies to trigger firms to innovate. The lecture will also include a discussion how to build and use innovation scoreboards and a detailed discussion of some of the questions used in innovation surveys.
The aim of this lecture is to get familiar with the most widely used innovation indicators and to understand how they have evolved and can be (adequately) used in the policy context.
Belvédère