As the importance of innovation as a driver of economic and social change grows, its nature, role and determinants are receiving increasing attention. Innovation is a broad concept which encompasses a wide range of activities and processes: markets, entrepreneurship, networks and competition, but also skills and organisations, creativity and knowledge transfers. Statistics covering various science and technology activities have been systematically collected by statisticians and researchers for more than 40 years, but only recently has the broader concept of innovation been formalised in a way that makes it possible to gather information about how firms innovate through large-scale statistical surveys.