METHODOLOGICAL DEBATE ON THE ‘REGIONAL INNOVATION SCOREBOARD’.
METHODOLOGICAL DEBATE ON THE ‘REGIONAL INNOVATION SCOREBOARD’.
the most active agents in developing, using and exploiting innovation indicators with the so-called European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS). New indicators are developed in order to capture the range of activities or functions oc- curring within a system, as necessary for it to reach the required outcome. Other approaches equivalent to the EIS for measuring innovation on a territorial scale are the Global Innovation Index (prepared by the WIPO-World Intellectual Property Organization), the Nordic Innovation Monitor (prepared by the Nordic Council of Ministers), or the Bloomberg Innovation Index, to mention a few. All these approaches are based on a synthetic index which summarises the set of indicators used to measure the phe- nomenon under study in a single variable. This synthetic index therefore provides a final rank - ing which can form the basis of a classification of the territories under analysis. While their relevance in terms of innovation policy practice is low (Arundel, 2007; Arundel and Hollanders, 2008; Mairesse and Mohnen, 2009), the syn- thetic indices developed to measure innovation have major implications, as many policy deci- sions are made on the conclusions drawn from them (Schibany and Streicher, 2008; Koz ł owski, 2015; Edquist et al. , 2018). when it comes to monitoring the results of the Innovation Union, which is one of the flagship initiatives in the Europe 2020 Strategy to create an innovation-friendly environment (European Union, 2021a) 1 . The EIS is offered nationally on a yearly basis, while regional analysis (called RIS- Regional Innovation Scoreboard) is offered every other year (in odd-numbered years, the latest being 2021) 2 . In order to measure the innovation performance of European countries and regions, both the EIS and the RIS introduce a synthetic index that ranks the territories con- sidered. This synthetic index, called Summary Innovation Index (SII) for national level and Re- Published yearly since 2001, the EIS is the European Commission's main instrument
gional Innovation Scoreboard (RIS) for regional level, is obtained through the arithmetic mean of all the indicators included in the EIS/RIS. Higher SII/RIS values therefore mean a better innovation system (i.e. the more, the better). The very nature of the SII/RIS also means that this will increase even if the result of increasing the resources allocated to support innovation is zero. The simplistic use of synthetic indices such as the SII/RIS can be pernicious, as rankings based on them are accepted without question- ing their validity (Grupp and Schubert, 2010). The risk is that, once accepted, synthetic indices can become political targets, thus mak- ing them ineffective at providing insight into certain situations and acting on them. This is commonly referred to as Goodhart’s law (Free- man and Soete, 2009), i.e. when a synthetic indicator becomes a target, it ceases to be a good indicator. Increasing the SII/RIS and im - proving its relative position in the ranking has thus become the target for many innovation policies, when in fact they should be looking to identify problems and improve the perfor- mance of innovation systems (Edquist, 2011). If the EIS/RIS is to have a positive impact on the performance of innovation systems, it is imperative that it first allows these systems to be exhaustively characterised, with a view to identifying their strengths and weaknesses and subsequently defining policies to meet their needs. The role of the public sector cannot be lim- ited exclusively to allocating more and more resources to support innovation. This is the logic that underlies the EIS/RIS, since assign- ing more resources will directly impact the synthetic index, without this necessarily having any effect on performance by the system as a whole. This implies following the linear inno - vation model (Rodriguez-Pose and Crescen- zi, 2008). The simplicity of the linear model
means that, despite being completely rejected in innovation research (Edquist, 2014), it still dominates innovation policy since, accord- ing to this dominant (albeit erroneous) logic, performance of an innovation system could be improved by simply increasing R&D activities. The Lisbon strategy (European Parliament, 2000) is a clear example of predomination of the linear innovation model, a “the more, the better” logic, and the risk and inefficien - cy shown by the synthetic indices. In 2000, this strategy defined that 3% of the European Union’s GDP should be allocated to R&D by 2010. As this target was not met, it was set again in 2010 (this time with a view to 2020), only for history to repeat itself and once again fall short of the target. As Rita Mae Brown said, in a phrase often attributed to Einstein, insan- ity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. This type of error in interpreting the mechanisms governing the behaviour of innovation systems, and, there- fore, in formulating innovation policies, has clear implications in terms of the inefficiency and ineffectiveness of such policies (Samara et al. , 2012). The role of the public sector cannot be limited exclusively to allocating more and more re- sources. It needs, above all, to give the system direction (Mazzucato, 2018). However, this requires us to first identify the direction we want the system to take, as reflected in the conversation between Alice and the Cheshire Cat in the introduction. Measuring innovation at territorial level is one of the most relevant challenges in the field of innovation policy. This is due to innovation be - ing a multidimensional phenomenon, to territo- rial heterogeneity, and to the lack of measures capable of capturing many of the key aspects conducive to innovation (Carayannis et al. , 2018). However, it would be utopian to assume
2021 EIS and RIS cover pages published by the European Commission.
1 All EIS annual reports are available free of charge: https://ec.europa.eu/info/research-and-innovation/statistics/performance-indicators/european-innovation-scoreboard_en
2 All RIS annual reports are available free of charge: https://ec.europa.eu/info/research-and-innovation/statistics/performance-indicators/regional-innovation-scoreboard_en
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