Special Issue on New Science and Technology Indicators, No. 27 Volume 2000 Issue 2

207 Pages·2002·1.298 MB·English

by  OECD

STI
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Science and technology policies have recently undergone
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deep-seated change, with an increasing focus on human resources, on o W
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objectives based on outputs instead of inputs, and on the role of 7
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firms. At the same time, new data sources have been set up or have
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become accessible to statisticians (labour force statistics, patent
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data, innovation surveys). In this context, science and technology I
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ministers of Member countries asked the OECD to develop new E
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indicators which would more closely reflect the move towards a I
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knowledge-based economy and the impact of policies in the S&T W
SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY INDUSTRY
field.
This last issue of STI Review presents the main results of the C
work carried out by the OECD under this mandate, ranging from Special Issue on
investment in knowledge, mobility of highly skilled workers,
New Science and Technology Indicators
innovation surveys and indicators, to public support to industrial
technology and fiscal policies for R&D.
Introduction –
New Science and Technology Indicators for the Knowledge-based
FURTHER READING
Economy: Opportunities and Challenges
Benchmarking University-Science Relationships
(to be published in late 2001).
E Investment in Knowledge
Constructing Internationally Comparable Indicators on the
Mobility of Highly Qualified Workers: A Feasibility Study
Innovation Surveys: Lessons from OECD Countries’ Experience
All OECD books and periodicals are now available on line
To Be or Not to Be Innovative: An Exercise in Measurement
www.SourceOECD.org
O
Using Patent Counts for Cross-country Comparisons of
Technology Output
Improving Measures of Government Support to Industrial
Technology
O
Measuring the Value of R&D Tax Treatments in OECD Countries
E
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-:HSTCQE=V\Z]VZ:
(90 2000 27 1 P) D
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No. 27
STI
REVIEW
Special Issue on New Science
and Technology Indicators
ORGANISATION FOR ECONOMIC CO-OPERATION AND DEVELOPMENT
ORGANISATION FOR ECONOMIC CO-OPERATION
AND DEVELOPMENT
Pursuant to Article 1 of the Convention signed in Paris on 14th December 1960,
and which came into force on 30th September 1961, the Organisation for Economic
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– to achieve the highest sustainable economic growth and employment and a
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– to contribute to sound economic expansion in Member as well as non-member
countries in the process of economic development; and
– to contribute to the expansion of world trade on a multilateral, non-
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The original Member countries of the OECD are Austria, Belgium, Canada,
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(Article 13 of the OECD Convention).
Publié en français sous le titre :
STI Revue
NUMÉRO SPÉCIAL : NOUVEAUX INDICATEURS DE LA SCIENCE ET DE LA TECHNOLOGIE
N° 27
© OECD 2001
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FOREWORD
Prepared by the OECD Directorate for Science, Technology and Industry, the
STI Review, published twice yearly, presents studies of interest to science, technol-
ogy and industry policy makers and analysts, with particular emphasis on cross-
country comparisons, quantitative descriptions of new trends and identification of
recent and future policy problems. Because of the nature of OECD work, the STI
Review explores structural and institutional change at global level as well as at
regional, national and sub-national levels. Issues often focus on particular themes,
such as surveys of firm-level innovation behaviour and technology-related
employment problems.
As the goals and instruments of science and technology policies have evolved
over the past decade, the need has arisen for new indicators in the field. The cur-
rent issue of STI Review reports on the major advances achieved by a multi-year
project conducted by OECD which aimed to select and design novel sources of
data and new statistical methods able to broaden the range of science and tech-
nology indicators and respond to the enhanced demand. Major topics covered
include: investment in knowledge, mobility of highly skilled workers, innovation
surveys and innovation indicators, public support to industrial technology, and fis-
cal policies for R&D. The OECD wishes to acknowledge the financial support of DG
Research of the European Commission for this project.
The views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect those of the
OECD or of its Member countries. The STI Review is published on the responsibility
of the Secretary-General of the OECD.
3
© OECD 2001
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction – New Science and Technology Indicators for the Knowledge-based
Economy: Opportunities and Challenges................................................................................ 7
Investment in Knowledge
Mosahid Khan................................................................................................................................. 19
Constructing Internationally Comparable Indicators on the Mobility
of Highly Qualified Workers: A Feasibility Study
Mikael Åkerblom............................................................................................................................. 49
Innovation Surveys: Lessons from OECD Countries’ Experience
Dominique Guellec and Bill Pattinson.............................................................................................. 77
To Be or Not to Be Innovative: An Exercise in Measurement
Jacques Mairesse and Pierre Mohnen............................................................................................... 103
Using Patent Counts for Cross-country Comparisons of Technology Output
Hélène Dernis and Dominique Guellec............................................................................................ 129
Improving Measures of Government Support to Industrial Technology
Alison Young................................................................................................................................... 147
Measuring the Value of R&D Tax Treatment in OECD Countries
Jacek Warda.................................................................................................................................... 185
5
© OECD 2001
INTRODUCTION
NEW SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY INDICATORS
FOR THE KNOWLEDGE-BASED ECONOMY:
OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES
An extended and high-quality set of quantitative indicators is necessary to
the design and evaluation of science and technology (S&T) policy. Indicators allow
the comparison of the relative situations of countries, the assessment of their
areas of strength and weakness, and the identification of domains where policy
intervention is required. They also provide feedback on the effects of policies.
Above all, indicators have to be able to adapt to the changing conditions and the
content of S&T policy.
At its meeting at Ministerial level held in 1995, the OECD Committee for
Scientific and Technological Policy agreed in its conclusions that “there is a need
for Member countries to collaborate to develop a new generation of indicators
which can measure innovative performance and other related output of a knowledge-
based economy”. They also agreed that “trends and challenges to the science
system need to be studied further by the OECD” and that “special attention
should be given to the data required for assessment, monitoring and policy-
making purposes”.
Demand from policy makers was the rationale for past statistical endeavours
that resulted, for instance, in the Frascati Manual (for research and experimental
development, R&D) in the early1960s and the Oslo Manual (for innovation) in the
1990s. As a result of such efforts, there exists today a rich set of S&T indicators,
many of which are collected by countries and compiled by the OECD and other
international organisations. These include R&D expenditure, head-counts of
researchers, technology balance of payments, production and trade of high-
technology goods and patents (these indicators are published twice yearly in the
OECD’s Main Science and Technology Indicators). However, as is argued in the above-
quoted ministers’ request, there is a clear need to extend the list of S&T indica-
tors. The context, as well as the content, of technology policy have been changing,
resulting in demand for new indicators, while at the same time new data sources 7
© OECD 2001
STI Review No. 27
and new methodologies are becoming available, providing opportunities for the
supply of new indicators.
Changes in demand for indicators
The importance of research and development (R&D) for technological change
and economic growth became clear after the Second World War. The Frascati Manual
(“guidelines for the collection of R&D data”, first published in1963), resulted
directly from demand by policy makers for measuring this newly identified factor
of growth. Since then, this view has not been disputed, although it has been
broadened and deepened. Part of this change in perspective is certainly due to
new conditions in the real world as well as, notably, the emergence of the “knowledge-
based economy”. Major aspects can be summarised as follows.
Innovation: R&D is a central piece in the process of technological change, but it
is not the only one. Technological innovations are new products or new processes
actually commercialised or implemented by firms. In addition to R&D in the strict
sense, there are other sources of new technology, such as design, new software,
training. The “innovation surveys” developed through the1990s, notably by Euro-
stat, aim to capture such activities. This applies especially to the expanding service
industries, where little R&D is undertaken but where innovation is spreading.
Investment in knowledge: certain activities, in addition to R&D, lead to an
increase in the stock of knowledge and information available to the economy, such
as investment in software, in training or in education. It is therefore useful to inte-
grate certain of these activities under the common label of “investment in knowl-
edge”, which gives a broader view of the advance towards knowledge-based
economies. A better integration of R&D into the overall framework of economic
statistics, the system of national accounts (SNA), goes into the same direction, as
it links R&D to other productive activities. This is the purpose of ongoing efforts at
OECD.
Human resources in S&T (HRST) are the major factor that enable a country to
generate and master new technology. A large HRST base is a sine qua non condition
for a country to continue to innovate, as it embodies the knowledge stock of the
country. In addition to researchers, engineers and technicians allow an efficient
application of technology. In particular, policies aimed at encouraging firms to
spend more on R&D will fail if the supply of HRST is insufficient, as more spending
would result only in higher costs. Counts of researchers, which have been avail-
able for a long time, reflect only one part of human resources. It is therefore
necessary to measure other components of HRST (R&D managers, production
engineers, technicians), and to investigate its structure and dynamics (such as
8 structure by skills, S&T fields, its domestic and international mobility). The
© OECD 2001
Introduction
“Canberra Manual” (OECD and Eurostat, 1995) was a first step in this direction.
More work needs to be done on the methodological side (improved definitions)
and on the identification and exploitation of the appropriate sources of data
(e.g.labour force surveys, census and special surveys performed in many countries).
Services are becoming increasingly innovative, but this trend is not well cap-
tured by current statistics which were built on the “bricks and mortar” model.
Much innovation in the services is not based on formal R&D, and R&D in these
sectors differs in many respects from R&D in manufacturing – its focus is not on the
natural sciences but more on the social sciences and humanities (SSH). In that
sense, it is clear that the issue is not one of R&D in the service sectors, but rather
service-type R&D in all sectors (as even manufacturing firms perform research in
these fields). Efforts have been engaged for the past decade both to capture non-
R&D innovation (through innovation surveys) and to improve the coverage of R&D
surveys to service firms. The definition of R&D in the Frascati Manual was broad-
ened in the1993 edition in order to more clearly encompass SSH. Many countries
have included service industries in their survey sample. It seems, however, that
the notion of R&D in services has still to be clarified, and the fifth revision of the
Frascati Manual is doing exactly that, by providing specific examples of R&D related
to human behaviour (customers, workers) and to organisation.
Emerging technologies, notably information and communication technology (ICT),
biotechnology, and, possibly in the future, others such as nanotechnology. These
new technologies have in common a large leverage effect in that they can influ-
ence entire parts of the economy. They lead to the emergence of entirely new
industries, they reshape many existing sectors and they change consumer
demand. This is notably the case for ICT, which is recognised as being a “general
purpose technology”. For these technologies, it is important not only to measure
their technological evolution (increase in performance) and the resources devoted
to their improvement (R&D, patents), but also their diffusion throughout the econ-
omy, which determines their impact on performance. Indicators of use, such as the
number of PCs or Internet connections tell us a great deal about the impact of ICT
on the economy. Definition and measurement of ICT industries and ICT-related
activities such as e-commerce have progressed. Statistical activity in this field has
been expanding rapidly over the past years (seeOECD, 2000, for ICT, and OECD,
2001a, for biotechnology).
Circulation of knowledge: as activities devoted to the creation of new knowledge
have expanded, it has become increasingly important for the entities involved to
maintain connections with one another. The increasing specialisation of knowl-
edge producers, be they companies or individual scientists, and the acceleration
of change makes it even more crucial that they remain connected, as they are all
sources of new knowledge for their partners. Networks are being set up (between 9
© OECD 2001
STI Review No. 27
companies, between companies and universities, between scientists, across bor-
ders), based on various types of contractual arrangements (e.g.joint ventures, sub-
contracting, exchange of personnel). The mobility of people, as carriers of human
capital and knowledge, between companies, universities, across borders, is
becoming increasingly important. The overall performance of a national system of
innovation depends critically on its ability to make knowledge available where it
is needed in the economy. This is the role of a broad set of institutions, including
various types of public and semi-public research organisations. Indicators should
be developed that reflect the circulation of knowledge: its intensity, its patterns,
the obstacles encountered. This raises a particular challenge for statisticians as it
implies not looking at one entity at one point in time, but rather looking at several
entities at once and at their relationships, and following them over time. When it
comes to international networks or international circulation of knowledge, the
challenge is more difficult as statistics are produced by national agencies, inde-
pendent of each other and whose methods and concerns often differ, making it
difficult to draw a consistent international picture.
Internationalisation is a major trend experienced by all technology-related activ-
ities. Multinational firms have research facilities in many different countries, R&D
joint ventures are increasingly international, human resources and ideas circulate
across borders (even more with the Internet), public research bodies, in the face
of rising costs, co-ordinate for their research programmes and for establishing
international research facilities (EC framework programmes, space station). For all
countries, foreign technology is a major factor of economic growth. All these fac-
tors, again, raise special difficulties for national statistical agencies. Greater
co-ordination is needed in order to put in place common definitions and proce-
dures for the collection of data. The ongoing OECD work on a “globalisation man-
ual” is a step in this direction, following on from the collection of data of R&D
performed by affiliates of foreign multinationals which started in the mid-1990s
(OECD, 2001b). Innovation surveys include questions regarding international link-
ages, such as sources of knowledge and alliances related to innovation.
Behaviour of firms: innovation is more market-driven than in the past; it is influ-
enced by the strategy and special conditions faced by individual firms. Stronger
competitive pressures push firms to become more innovative and to rapidly
adopt recent technology. Businesses may face obstacles to innovation such as
market access (due to incumbents or to regulation) or access to funds (lack of
financing for innovative SMEs). However, these new trends are not clearly visible
from aggregate (country or industry level) data. Longitudinal databases must be
set up and accessed by researchers. This raises statistical difficulties (tracking a
same firm from year to year is not easy, especially as firms often merge or split)
10 and legal ones (confidentiality of firm-level data). A related challenge is to capture
© OECD 2001