Assessing research performance
The Europe 2020 strategy includes the transformation of Europe into an Innovation Union by 2020, using means such as boosting research investment and improving European attractiveness. Other important mechanisms involve increasing cooperation between industry and universities, and encouraging mobility and cross-border cooperation. Funded by the EU, the project COMPOSITES 4 IU investigated progress towards Europe 2020 strategy objectives. The one-year project began in April 2012, and compared data from 53 countries including all EU members and candidate members. Building on the work of an earlier project, ERA_MONITORING, the study attempted to develop four sets of indicators. Topics included: progress towards a unified European Research Area (ERA), progress towards higher research excellence, structural change in the economy, and diffusion of knowledge and technology. The initial goal was to combine sub-indicators to render one composite indicator. Team members concluded that a composite indicator measuring research interaction is not feasible. The limited number of variables correlate poorly or sometimes conflict. Nevertheless, several of the 19 indicator variables selected have merits singly. One conclusion was that concerning public/private research interaction, mobility and collaboration are related. COMPOSITES 4 IU proposed a composite indicator of research excellence, using four variables. An additional proposed indicator examined structural change at the country level, indicating a dependency on past performance and that indicator values are slow to change. The study assessed the efficiency of 37 national research systems in achieving excellent research performances between 2004 and 2008. The investigation showed a relationship between input and output: countries spending more on research achieve higher levels of research. Most of the studied countries also improved during the period. Indicators developed by COMPOSITES 4 IU directly relate to the implementation of the EU's Innovation Union flagship initiative. The project-supplied quantitative information about research performance and structural change that will be important to Europe 2020.