Overview
Aims and objectives
The promotion of innovation is high on the policy agenda in Europe as attempts are made to close the perceived gap in productivity performance with the USA. In the UK a wide range of policy initiatives have been undertaken to promote the commercialisation of scientific and technical knowledge. In the UK and the rest of Europe the role that small entrepreneurial firms can play has also been the subject of intense debate, not least because of the perception that the recent renaissance in US productivity and economic growth performance is associated with a high level of technology based entrepreneurial activity. As a result of a major collaborative effort across the governments of the European Union an increasing amount is known about the comparative extent of innovative behaviour and the determinants of innovative success across member countries, and across size classes of firms. Within this project this was extended to a comparison between the UK and the USA carried out using new surveys. These involved a comparison of the level of innovative activities, the process by which innovation takes place and the barriers to innovation. The benchmarking exercise consisted of a comparative analysis of the inputs into and outcomes of innovative activity. It included an analysis of the extent and nature of collaborative strategies in both countries and of the extent and nature of interactions with the science base.
Although the richness of the dataset will permit a wide range of issues to be addressed in the econometric analysis we will focus on 2 issues, both of which are of particular interest in the analysis of small and medium sized enterprises, and where an analysis of them in relation to larger enterprises in a comparative international context will be made possible by the dataset created. The first of these is a link between networking, inter-firm collaboration, access to the science base and innovation performance. This has been a significant issue in the development of an enterprise based industrial policy in Europe and the UK, where the comparative performance of the USA is frequently alluded to as a role model. The second is the link between innovation performance management strategy and the financial and growth performance of the firm.
Results and dissemination
During 2004 we carried out surveys by telephone in both the UK and the US. The UK telephone survey resulted in 1,972 interviews and the US survey resulted in 1,518 interviews. The survey instruments included questions on the following topics (a total of 44 questions and 295 variables):
- general characteristics of the company
- innovation and new technology
- principal products and competition
- finance and capital expenditure
The sectors were all manufacturing and the business services sectors, both sets being divided into high-tech and conventional sectors. Work has continued to explore the links between innovation and company performance and the differences between the two nations. The data have also been used to provide background information for the open innovation project which started in October 2009.
Project leader
- Andy Cosh
Other principal investigators
- Alan Hughes
- Richard Lester (MIT)
- Anna Bullock
- Xiaolan Fu
- Ana Siqueira
- Isobel Milner
Visiting fellow
Bronwyn Hall (University of California, Berkeley)
Project dates
2002-2009
Funding
Cambridge-MIT Institute (CMI)