Innovation Index 'Call for Ideas' - full text

[Innovation Index Admin]

The full text of the Innovation Index 'Call for Ideas' launched at NESTA on Monday 7th July, 2008. All submissions must be received by NESTA by 5pm on Friday 12th September, 2008.

[Brian MacAulay]

We are pleased to contribute to NESTA's Innovation Index call for ideas. The West Midlands Regional Observatory, along with Advantage West Midlands are supportive of the project and are keen to work with NESTA on achieving a successful project.

Through a regional workshop we discussed key aspects of the call for ideas, most notably what an index should look like. Any output should, where possible reflect that innovation emerges from dynamic and complex interation; it should reflect that innovation is inherently a speculative activity and as such occurs in an uncertain environment. Any attempt to impose 'precision through reductionism' will potentially undermine the effectiveness of the project.

[Paula Maratos]

This email is in response to your call for ideas which closes today at 5pm.

It is based on a short discussion with colleagues in the BERR Enterprise Directorate Analytical Unit around the call for ideas paper, and presents our first thoughts on the development of the index. Of course, we expect to participate in further discussions and development of the index going forwards.

1. What is innovation?

We thought it was desirable to be able to separate between innovation and adoption. Also whether it could include capacity to innovate (e.g. patents pending, STEM university places/graduates)

Whatever definition is chosen, it needs to be clearly understood by, for example, businesses, when answering surveys.

2. What does "the UK" mean?

We thought it would be useful to collect data which was both from innovation activity in the UK (including by foreign-owned firms) and innovation activity abroad by UK owned businesses, as both would surely benefit the UK (e.g. in terms of encouraging inward investment by other firms choosing to locate here, innovation elsewhere feeding into the success and growth of UK businesses).

3. Main objectives

We had no strong preferences, but 1,4,5, and 6 (in no particular order) were seen as more important than 2 and 3.

5. How do organisations currently measure innovation?

We thought you might like to be aware of our research which includes questions on innovation (similar to those in the CIS). More details of our Annual Small Business Survey (which will be every 2 years from 2009) can be found at http://www.berr.gov.uk/bbf/enterprise-smes/research-and-statistics/.... There is possibly scope to pilot some new innovation questions in this survey (which is to a sample of around 9,000 SMEs in the UK)- please contact me if this is something you wish to discuss further. We are also running a pilot longitudinal business survey in 2008/09, which again, there is scope to influence in terms of developing the innovation index (indices).

Are you aware of the OECD work on the Entrepreneurship Indicators Project? One aspect of this includes innovation. We can provide further details if required.

7. What should the output of the Innovation Index look like?

We would like if possible to have a size of business breakdown (for example 0 employees, 1-9 employees, 10-49 employees, 50-249 employees, 250+ employees) or at the very least SME vs Large businesses. Evidence is limited and mixed into how innovative SMEs are. Best practice elsewhere- possibly the OECD "education at a glance" publication, although possibly more brief!

I look forward to seeing this project develop and the outputs will be of great interest.

Yours sincerely,

Paula Maratos
Deputy Director - Analytical Unit
Enterprise Directorate
BERR