Key findings

• Metrics matter: policy is affected by the targets used to measure ‘success’.
• Traditional innovation measurements have produced traditional innovation policy, but innovation is changing
• However, innovation is difficult to define, quantify and measure
• Creating new metrics poses further difficulties.
• The Innovation Index project is an opportunity to develop and deliver better measures of innovation.

Around the world, policymakers are demanding new ways to measure innovation.

Existing innovation metrics constrain policymakers by reinforcing a linear model of innovation that bears little relation to the innovation that is most relevant to the modern UK economy.

Traditional metrics fail to adequately capture innovation in services, the public sector and the creative industries, or new trends in open and user-led innovation.

This briefing looks at how the Innovation Index project could deliver better measures of innovation.

Author:

Nesta