Where is the most dynamic business sector?

The report Development and Analysis of Innovation Indicators in the Nordic Countries

is part of a co-operative project in which all Nordic countries participate. The central objectives are analysis of the innovation activity in the Nordic countries, and the development of new indicators.

Innovation activity is influenced by business structure

The results show that the innovation activity in Norway on the whole is somewhat lower than that of the neighbouring countries. However, innovation comparisons across countries have to be made with certain reservations; differences in innovation performance can be attributed to enterprises being more innovative in one country, but can also be due to one country having more enterprises in a particularly innovation intensive sector or industry.

Norway is the Nordic country with the lowest share of turnover from new products - only 7 per cent of the total turnover is due to innovations. An industry by industry comparison, however, shows Norwegian innovation activity in a better light than a comparison of aggregates. The low share is to a large extent attributable to the fact that innovation intensive industries represent a smaller share of the total economy in Norway than in the other countries. If industry structure is corrected for, however, and total figures for Norway are calculated based upon a common Nordic industry structure (mean), the share of turnover from innovated products is 11 per cent, a higher share than in Finland and Iceland (see figure 1). This result shows that Nordic differences in part are due to differences in industry structure. When these differences in industry structure are taken into account, better comparisons can be made, and the basis for innovation policy design is thus improved.

A more balanced picture of the innovation activity

Another objective is to give a more detailed description of innovation activities in the business and enterprise sector. The term innovation is broad and covers inventions of both global and local scale. Hence, innovators are divided into sub-groups according to the level of novelty of their innovations. Different types of innovators are identified by using the information that is available. Data on the enterprise’s sources information, co-operation partners, markets etc. are used to design composite indicators which categorize the innovators according to novelty and independence. Composite innovation indicators are treated in part two of the report.

The report is part of the Nordic co-operative project NIND ( Policy Relevant Nordic Innovation Indicators ), and is written by Statistics Norway and The Danish Centre for Studies in Research and Research Policy (CFA). The project and the report are commissioned by the Nordic Innovation Centre (NICe). The aim of the project is to provide analyses and indicators which are relevant for innovation policy design and the use of policy instruments.

The report can be downloaded from: http://nind.nifustep.no/nind/index.htm