This publication examines the relationship between innovation policy and economic performance in six OECD countries – Austria, Finland, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom. In-depth analyses highlight countries’ strengths and weaknesses in innovation, as well as the effectiveness of their innovation policies in driving economic performance. Taken together, the country studies constitute a rich evidence base which will be of considerable interest to innovation policy makers in all OECD countries. They indicate that countries share a need to adapt – or even profoundly change – their innovation policies in order to deal with opportunities and threats posed by new technological and economic developments.
This report reviews the experience of Panama in designing, implementing and evaluating innovation policy. It provides a comparative analysis of Panama’s innovation performance and reviews the design and implementation of the national innovation policy focusing on the National Plan (2010-2014). The review of the institutional setting, the policy mix and budget for innovation policy includes a comparison with the experience of two peer countries, the Dominican Republic and Uruguay.
Innovation is crucial to long-term economic growth, even more so in the aftermath of the financial and economic crisis. In this volume, the OECD and the World Bank jointly take stock of how globalisation is posing new challenges for innovation and growth in both developed and developing countries, and how countries are coping with them. The authors discuss options for policy initiatives that can foster technological innovation in the pursuit of faster and sustainable growth.
The various chapters highlight how the emergence of an integrated global market affects the impact of national innovation policy. What seemed like effective innovation strategies (e.g. policies designed to strengthen the R&D capacity of domestic firms) are no longer sufficient for effective catch-up. The more open and global nature of innovation makes innovation policies more difficult to design and implement at the national scale alone. These challenges are further complicated by new phenomena, such as global value chains and the fragmentation of production, the growing role of global corporations, and the ICT revolution. Where and why a global corporation chooses to anchor its production affects the playing field for OECD and developing economies alike.
Selected as a 2009 Notable Document by the American Library Association Government Documents Round Table.
From research and development to legal and marketing services, a wide range of knowledge-intensive service activities (KISAs) enables firms and public sector organisations to better innovate. This publication examines the contribution of knowledge-intensive services to the acquisition and growth of innovation capabilities in firms and public sector organisations. It focuses on KISAs in four industy sectors: software, health care, tourism and leisure, and resource-based industries such as mining technology services, aquaculture and forestry. The analysis derives from a series of surveys and case studies undertaken in nine OECD countries: Australia, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Norway and Spain.
Innovation drives long-term economic growth. It has a crucial role to play as global economies recover from the current financial crisis. This book examines the role of innovation in developing countries, with a focus on Africa. It investigates innovation systems and their application; the key role of knowledge in innovation for development; and the importance of comparable country studies and official statistics on innovation. It stresses the need for innovation to become part of a comprehensive development agenda, and makes recommendations for promoting activities in both the formal and informal sectors, with the aim of transforming agriculture into a knowledge-based industry capable of stimulating economic growth.
Innovation and the Development Agenda is an important component of the overall OECD Innovation Strategy, which seeks to create stronger and more sustainable growth, while addressing the key global challenges of the 21st century. It is also part of the Innovation, Technology, and Society programme of IDRC. For more information on IDRC programmes see www.idrc.ca.
How can innovation and technology better contribute to environmental sustainability? What factors drive firms to innovate for the environment? How can environmental and innovation policies be better designed to stimulate innovation for the environment? How can better policy coherence be achieved? A recent OECD workshop addressed these crucial questions that lead to a better understanding of the interaction between innovation and the environment and explored elements of "best practice" policies that can stimulate innovation for the environment and shift our development path towards sustainability.
This report reviews efforts under way in a number of OECD countries to advance innovation in energy technology, with a particular focus on hydrogen fuel cells. It compares energy innovation systems in Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Norway, the United Kingdom and United States to identify the roles of government, industry, universities and other public research organisations in the innovation process. It also examines the policies governments are implementing to finance needed research and development and to stimulate market demand for innovative energy technologies.
Innovation has become a key factor for economic growth, but how does the process take place at the level of individual firms? This book presents the main results of the OECD Innovation Microdata Project -- the first large-scale effort to exploit firm-level data from innovation surveys across 20 countries in an internationally harmonised way, with a view to addressing common analytical questions. Through the use of common indicators and econometric modeling, this analytical report presents a broad overview of how firms innovate in different countries, highlights some of the limitations of current innovation surveys, and identifies directions for future research.
Innovation has been a driving force in the successful deployment of nuclear energy and remains essential today for its sustainable future. As nuclear energy is an attractive option for ensuring diversity and security of energy supply, as well as lower global climate change risks, the way to continue this innovation is a key issue for industry and interested governments. This report provides an overview of the state of the art in nuclear innovation systems, including their driving forces, main actors, institutional and legal frameworks, and infrastructure for knowledge and programme management. It also offers policy recommendations based on country reports and case studies supplied by participating member countries.
This publication examines the innovation system in pharmaceutical biotechnology in eight OECD countries - Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway and Spain. The report summarises the results of in-depth studies, providing a comparative analysis of participating countries' performance in science and innovation in biopharmaceuticals. It highlights specific characteristics of the national biopharmaceutical innovation systems in terms of their international openness and the specific role of demand-side factors in the innovation process. Major systemic failures affecting the functioning of the biopharmaceutical innovation systems are identified. Based on rich evidence, the report draws policy recommendations to foster innovation in biopharmaceuticals advocating an integrated policy approach.
The Southeast Asian (SEA) region is one of the most dynamic in the world. It is in a period of transition as its national economies become strongly integrated into global knowledge networks. Science and technology (S&T) offer opportunities for countries to ‘move up the value chain’. A better understanding of existing capabilities helps enhance mutually beneficial S&T and innovation co-operation between SEA and OECD countries.
This review provides a quantitative and qualitative assessment of Southeast Asian countries’ capacity in S&T and innovation. A regional synthesis highlights current performance and intra- and extra-regional knowledge circulation, including flows between the Southeast Asian region and the established centres of knowledge production such as the EU, Japan and the United States. The country profiles describe the dynamics of national innovation systems and their relation to international knowledge flows, taking into account the wider framework conditions for innovation.
This book throws a spotlight on innovation across the software universe, setting out key issues and highlighting policy perspectives. It spans research and development, invention, production, distribution and use of software in the market. It also covers core innovation themes from a user perspective -- including security and privacy, mobility, interoperability, accessibility and reliability.
Australia’s agriculture and food industries are well placed to contribute to the economy’s future growth given the robust prospects of global food demand and the continuing high international competitiveness of these sectors. There are, however, important challenges that call for new ways to exploit agricultural resources and human capital. The decade-long decline in agricultural productivity growth needs to be overcome, coupled with the need to accommodate uncertainties about the impacts of climate change and to respond to societal demands in the areas of sustainable development and animal welfare. The agro-food sector also needs to absorb exchange-rate and cost pressures created by the mining boom. To tap additional opportunities of the higher value food segments, Australian agri-businesses need new knowledge and capabilities to seize demand signals and value opportunities, particularly from more affluent consumers in Asian markets.
Agriculture and the agro-processing sector in Brazil have shown impressive growth over the past two decades. This has largely been driven by productivity improvements and structural adjustment resulting from broad economic reforms, as well as new technologies developed by agricultural science. Government policy and industry initiatives are increasingly focused on the sustainability of agricultural development.
The Canadian food and agriculture sector is for the most part competitive and export-oriented: although challenges and opportunities vary significantly between regions, primary agriculture benefits from an abundance of natural resources and faces limited environmental constraints. Negative environmental impacts of agriculture relate mainly to local water pollution by agricultural nutrients. Productivity growth, resulting from innovation and structural change, has driven production and income growth without significantly increasing pressure on resource use. Nonetheless, the capacity to innovate is crucial to take advantage of the growing and changing demand for food and agricultural products at the global level.
The expansion of agricultural production in China has been remarkable, but at the expense of the sustainable use of its natural resources. To counter this, as well as to face problems due to rising labour costs and a rapidly ageing rural population, agricultural production must concentrate on a smaller number of more productive farms. It is in this light that this report reviews recent policy developments to assess whether they have been conducive to productivity growth and environmental sustainability. It finds that the conditions for structural change and innovation at the farm level in China could be further improved by securing the long-term stability of land rights as well as reducing transaction costs. Greater policy coherence with agri-environmental policy objectives could also be achieved through stricter enforcement of environmental regulations. Finally, the agricultural innovation system could play a greater role by placing the focus on public agricultural R&D in areas such as the environment and resource conservation, and in other areas which do not attract much private sector investment.
Estonian agriculture has undergone significant growth and structural change since the 1990s in a policy and regulatory environment that has been mostly supportive of investment. The implementation of the Common Agricultural Policy has contributed to the modernisation of the country's agriculture, leading to high productivity growth with relatively limited environmental pressure. High educational levels and strong public research institutions have also provided a fertile environment for innovation in Estonia, although Estonian agri-food companies struggle to participate in food and agricultural research activities. Attracting and retaining people in the agriculture sector at a time of growing labour and skills shortages in rural areas is an increasing challenge. Further innovation and adaptation will be needed to sustain and expand agriculture and food in Estonia.
Latvia, a member of the European Union since 2004, is a small, dynamic and open economy that has successfully transitioned from central planning to a market economy. The reforms undertaken have driven progress, although from generally low levels and at a slower pace in agriculture than for the economy as a whole. This report examines the conditions under which farms and businesses in the food and agriculture sector in Latvia undertake innovation to become more productive and environmentally sustainable. It identifies opportunities as well as challenges that need to be addressed. These include economy wide skills shortage, emigration and population decline and urban concentration of population and services. At the sectoral level, these include the use of agricultural payments to support a large number of non-commercial farms and the high level of unpaid farm labour. To meet these challenges, agricultural innovation can be harnessed to improve the sector’s productivity, as well as the sustainability and efficiency of the food system. This report provides a series of recommendations that should allow agricultural policies to contribute to a well-functioning innovation system that can meet the challenges that lie ahead.
Agricultural innovation in Sweden has sought to improve the competitiveness and sustainability of the agri-food sector by ensuring a high level of environmental and animal welfare standards, while raising the productivity and financial viability of farms. The policies enacted to date have contributed to a high level of consumer confidence in the quality and methods of food production, but challenges remain. These include adapting new technologies that will further strengthen the high environmental, animal welfare and food standards within a more balanced regional and open trading system. In view of the high production costs in Sweden, there is a need to continue with structural adjustments and better targeted investments in the agri-food sector, as well as to improve the level of interactions between research institutions and farmers to ensure that innovative techniques are adopted by all participants.
The Dutch food, agriculture and horticulture sector is innovative and export oriented, with high value-added along the food chain and significant world export shares for many products. Continuous adoption of innovation has permitted to reach high levels of productivity and sustained productivity growth, in particular at the farm level, in a context of increasing environmental regulatory constraints. The challenge is whether marginal improvements in current technologies and know-how will be enough to pursue current rates of productivity growth – sustainably – and whether the innovation system will be able to generate the new ideas that are needed to face future challenges, including those linked to climate change.