國家創新系統效率性之跨國研究

Abstract

The concept of national innovation systems (NIS) is broadly defined as the structural and functional profiles of a nation that determine its innovative capability and economic performance. The concept has supported a general shift in what policy makers saw as constituting “international competitiveness”. But the systemic nature of NIS provides policy makers with a large number of possible entry points for resources directed at supporting innovation. Another issue is that governments and policy makers have limited resources and budget. There is a need to objectively study the efficiency of NIS and to cross compare the NIS efficiency among countries member of the European Union in order to determine critical elements in efficient operations of NIS. The purpose is to group European countries according to their ability to transform innovation assets in results. Composite indicators are calculated, based on 26 innovation indicators, to obtain the efficiency index of each country. A cluster analysis is then used to group countries with similar characteristics. The efficiency data and clusters are discussed to outline two possible directions for further research. The first links the efficiency and absolute performance of a NIS to a small variance among indicators. The second is based on the positive effects on the efficiency of NIS of the population’s attitude toward innovation.