The Global Innovation Index 2012

cHApTEr 4
Accounting for Science-Industry Collaboration in Innovation:
Existing Metrics and Related Challenges
Sacha wunSch-Vincent, World Intellectual property Organization
The theme of this year’s Global
Innovation Index (GII) report
underlines the importance of linkages
among innovation actors in
modern innovation ecosystems.
Innovation is increasingly understood
as an interactive learning process
that embraces the integration of
knowledge from external sources.
Innovation processes have become
more fragmented and ‘open’.1
Markets for technologies allow for
the exchange of technologies more
and more frequently.
In this arrangement, universities
and public research organizations
(PROs) are a fundamental pillar
of the innovation ecosystem. On
the one hand, they provide human
capital and training. On the other
hand, they advance knowledge
through public science and diffuse
that knowledge through tacit or
tangible technology transfer activities.
Accordingly, in high- and middle-income
countries alike, strategies
have aimed to improve linkages
among public research and firms.
Although there is now consensus
that these linkages among innovation
actors are crucial, measuring
their existence and impact remains
daunting. As outlined in the Preface
to this report, this difficulty has an
effect on our ability to judge existing
policies. This is unfortunate because
the creation of linkages is likely one
of the most complex innovation policy
areas, with no easy recipes and
few countries or regions with notable
successes.
With a view to improving the
availability of the indicators that
could be useful in the GII, this chapter
discusses the metrics that are currently
available to measure publicsector
research and science-industry
collaboration.
Putting a figure on public-sector research
Although our main interest here is
related to metrics for science-industry
linkages, often data on the size
of public-sector research are used to
assess its role in the broader innovation
ecosystem. A number of firstclass
variables with wide country
coverage for recent years exist today
to assess the size of public-sector
research (see Table 1).
These metrics show that universities
and PROs account for a substantial
share of both total research and
development (R&D) and the number
of researchers in a given country.
For instance, in high-income economies,
the public sector is responsible
for anywhere between 20 and 45%
of annual total R&D expenditure.
PROs—rather than universities or
firms—are often the main R&D
actors in low- and middle-income
economies.
On the one hand, these data are
part and parcel of a complete analysis
of innovation potential. They
help to identify where limited public
research—and hence a lack of
knowledge creation—is holding
back a country’s innovation ecosystem.
Public research itself does
not guarantee a proficient business
R&D and innovation. Yet public
research efforts trigger firms to perform
more R&D themselves as these
efforts raise the returns on firms’
innovation expenditure. Indeed,
almost no country has—in absolute
terms—large private R&D expenditures
but meaningless public R&D.
On the other hand, these metrics
alone do not contribute to assessing
the linkages between the public
and the private sector or any resulting
impacts. Worse, in many non-
OECD countries the problem is in
fact that the majority of R&D projects
and researchers are concentrated
in universities or PROs, often without
diffusion to the private sector.
In middle- and low-income countries,
firms often contribute little
to scientific research. Absent its
own R&D capacity, the private sector
cannot ‘absorb’ what is done in
public research. Public actors are
also unable to identify the correct
research priorities and methods.
Researchers have little incentive to
transfer their technologies.
Another interesting set of variables
used to assess the contribution
of the public sector is the level and
share of basic R&D conducted in
universities and PROs. Basic R&D
in the public sector is recognized as
a necessary driver for radical innovations.
On their own, businesses
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THE GLOBAL INNOVATION INDEX 2012 4: Accounting for Science-Industry Collaboration