Community Innovation Survey

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The Community Innovation Surveys are a series of surveys executed by national statistical offices throughout the European Union since 1992. The harmonized surveys are designed to give information on the innovativity of different sectors and regions. Data from these surveys is used for the annual European Innovation Scoreboard.

1 Surveys
2 Methodology
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Surveys

In the 1980s, a series of individual surveys on innvation was carried out.^[1] Thereupon, the member states of the European Union decided to coordinate their efforts, and they laid down a common methodological approach to innovation research in the Oslo Manual.

As of 2007, four CIS surveys have been carried out:

CIS1, 1992
CIS2, 1996
CIS3, 2001
CIS4, 2004

CIS1 experienced some difficulties, partly because no standards existed yet, and partly because of a rather limited time-frame.^[2]. However, it already made a first attempt at homogenization, and at comparability with non-EU surveys. In that sense it was an important step towards CIS2, even though both surveys turned out to mark a rather large number of firms as 'innovative' due to their generous definitions.^[3] The more recent surveys paid more attention to service innovations, and future surveys will also include management techniques, organisational change, design and marketing issues.^[4]

[edit] Methodology

National statistical offices carry out the survey according to the EU-wide definitions of the Oslo Manual. They generally take a sample from all establishments, stratifying the sample by sector, establishment size and possibly region.^[5] For the size classes, a portion of all establishments below a certain size threshold is selected, but all large establishments receive a questionnaire. Since establishments are targeted, not firms, the characteristics of multi-plant firms can be taken into account.

The resulting microdatasets can be accessed by researchers in some countries. Eurostat also provides access to the EU-wide dataset. Some non-EU countries perform very similar surveys according to the same methodology. These include Canada, USA, Norway, Finland and Austria (which became members of the EU after CIS1), Australia and South Africa.^[6]