CORDIS Archive

EIMS Studies
Innovation Activities and Industrial Structure
Industry and R&D in a Comparative Context

Abstract

In the past, R&D has played a significant role in innovation policy. However the emphasis on R&D is now changing to a more complex mix of measures and instruments designed to reflect the fact that non R&D aspects of both innovation and diffusion processes are increasingly important. Nevertheless, R&D remains a key input to innovation, and it is important to understand more about the nature of variation in R&D inputs.

Main Findings:

The report cautions on assessing and interpreting differences in R&D intensities between economies particularly in the manufacturing sector. Variations in manufacturing R&D intensities are often substantial: small economies tend to have much lower manufacturing R&D intensities than large economies.

This paper shows that these differences predominantly reflect differences in industrial structure, rather that some underlying differences in the willingness or ability to perform R&D. This paper develops methods for quantifying the effects from R&D intensity which flow from absolute size and from the particular structure of industry.

Policy Implications:

From a policy point of view, it is clear that care needs to be exercised when making intercountry comparisons with science and technology data. This report claims that in many economies, expecially small economies, innovation policy makers have the objective of raising the R&D intensity of manufacturing industry. It is pointed out that this approach may need some reconsideration, since R&D performance seems to reflect the underlying activities of the economy. It emphasises that technological performance cannot be improved simply by raising R&D levels.

Empirical studies and the Community Innovation Survey (CIS)