METHODOLOGICAL DEBATE ON THE ‘REGIONAL INNOVATION SCOREBOARD’.
Exec- utive sum- mary
The ultimate goal of these indicators and synthetic indices is to help public administra- tors tasked with drafting innovation policies by identifying specific aspects of the innovation system that require public intervention due to their structural deficiencies or requirements. However, the literature shows that most terri- tories define their innovation policies according to their relative position in the rankings, rath- er than as a result of structured, systematic analysis of the indicators behind the synthetic indices or the conclusions that can be drawn from them. Previous research has shown that the meth- odology followed in drafting these synthetic indices has a direct impact on the rankings, and therefore on the policies subsequently implemented in most European countries and regions. We hope that this report will help inform the debate on the methodology used in drafting synthetic indices, focusing on analysis of the Regional Innovation Scoreboard (RIS), which is one of the main instruments used by the European Commission to evaluate the innovation performance of European regions. To measure the innovation performance of Eu- ropean regions, the RIS introduces a synthetic index obtained from the arithmetic mean of its 21 indicators. When constructing the RIS index using this approach, it is assumed that higher RIS values mean a better innovation system (i.e. the more, the better). However, this very nature of the RIS also means that the value of this synthetic index will increase even if the result of increasing the resources allocated to support innovation is zero growth. The decision to construct the RIS index using this method- ology may have a direct impact on the relative position of the Spanish regions in the final ranking, without forgetting the implications that this ranking may have on any participa- tion in calls for proposals or on the allocation of resources in structural policies such as the Smart Specialisation Strategies developed by the European Commission.
Innovation is one of the main drivers of economic growth and social wel- fare. Recent dec- ades have seen the development of an increasing number of indicators, with a view to charac- terising innovation and its impact on territorial com- petitiveness. Giv- en the large number of indicators re- quired to measure a phenomenon as com- plex as innovation, these are grouped together in a syn- thetic index that provides a final ranking of the ter- ritories being ana- lysed.
7
Made with FlippingBook - Online Brochure Maker