Case study: Innovation in the field of innovation indicators
Summary
Sandro Mendonça has examined the potential role of new indicators of innovation, in a paper published in 2004 Research Policy, the leading journal on science and technology studies. Mendonça and colleagues argued that trademarks were an underappreciated source for understanding change in the economy and that this indicator could uncover innovation in sectors like services or traditional industries. This paper has been used by public policy institutions and has remained the leading methodological reference in this area. It has been used to justify the opening up of the innovation indicator portfolio so as to highlight developments that are not captured with standard science and technology statistics like R&D spending or patents. Today the trademark indicator features regularly in reports by institutions such as the OECD or the National Science foundation in the US.
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