Development of Innovation Monitoring and Innovation Indicators in the Past 50 Years

Innovation indicators are instruments to systematically analyse the performance of innovation processes and systems. In this chapter we discuss the evolution of innovation indicators alongside conceptual developments as well as technical and methodological progress. We identify four driving factors, namely (1) new theories/concepts, (2) lower technical thresholds for data analyses and availability of new data, (3) increasing policy demands and (4) technological and economic developments. Our discussion shows that at different stages of the indicator development different factors were the driving forces. The early innovation indicators were mainly R&D-centred with a strong focus on the manufacturing industry and R&D processes in companies as well as the science systems. The innovation system’s perspective widened the focus and introduced additional indicators, among them indicators on transfer and collaboration. Data availability and better options for data treatment and analysis gave another push. More recently, information and computer science methods have entered the innovation indicators scene and widened the scope even further. We conclude that indicators are a means to measure and assess constructs which are otherwise not directly measurable. They should not become a means in itself.