Outcome indicators for the Thematic priorities addressing the Europe 2020 Objective “Improving the conditions for innovation, research and development”

One of the five objectives of Europe 2020 is Improving the conditions for innovation, research and development. The aspects dealt with in this note relate primarily to the technical and organisational characteristics of innovation, and in particular to the relationship between issues of science, technology, R&D, and firm performance.The required outcome indicators for Operational Programmes (and Partnership Contracts) and projects that improve the conditions for innovation, research and development, must capture a complex process of change. It is extremely difficult to measure regional innovation by meansof one single indicator. Perhaps new product count information comes closest to the ideal world but the high costs involved in developing such data prohibit their regular collection (Varga 1998). Innovation surveys could also serve the goal quite well but unfortunately Community Innovation Survey (CIS) data are not representative regionally in most of the European countries (IAREG 2008).