Outputs of innovation systems: accounting what comes out of the system

This paper focuses upon the performance of innovation systems from an output perspective. Innovation performance measurement is considered as increasingly interesting by several scholars during last years. It is also important as basis for the design and implementation of innovation policies. Different methodologies dealing with innovation performance are found not only in the literature but also in more official organizations such as the European Commission, articulated by the Community Innovation Surveys and the European Innovation Scoreboard. One of the main concerns in these methodologies is how to deal with the outputs of an innovation system. Many difficulties arise in the use of science and technology statistics, as there are several phenomena that are hard to measure. In addition, it may be important to distinguish between: (i) innovations in a proper sense (product and process innovations), (ii) determinants of innovations (learning, interactions), and (iii) consequences of innovations (growth, employment). In this paper we try to characterize some European countries according to seven innovation output indicators in the manufacturing and service sectors. The approach followed in this paper could also provide insights when applied to developing countries, which are already concerned with the collection of science and technology indicators.