The performance of a country’s national innovation systems as compared to all OECD countries is represented in Panel 1 of the country profiles of the OECD Science, Technology and Industry Outlook 2012. A standard set of indicators is used to: i) describe the competences and capacity of the science base and the business sector to innovate, as well as the framework conditions for entrepreneurship; ii) provide some insights on interactions between STI actors via the deployment and use of the Internet and their participation in domestic and international co-operation networks; and iii) depict the status of the human resources pool and prospects for increasing human capital further through inflows of new science and technology talent. Indicators are normalised (by GDP or population) to take account of the size of the country.  

The OECD Science, Technology and Industry Outlook presents, in a series of country profiles, the main features, strengths and weaknesses of national STI systems and major recent changes in national STI policy. The statistical dimension of the country profiles has drawn on the work and empirical research conducted by the OECD on the measurement of innovation and the development of internationally comparable STI indicators for policy analysis.

The revealed technology advantage (RTA) index provides an indication of the relative specialisation of a given country in selected technological domains and is based on patent applications filed under the Patent Cooperation Treaty. It is defined as a country’s share of patents in a particular technology field divided by the country’s share in all patent fields. The index is equal to zero when the country holds no patent in a given sector; is equal to 1 when the country’s share in the sector equals its share in all fields (no specialisation); and above 1 when a positive specialisation is observed. Only economies with more than 500 patents over the period reviewed are included. Data are drawn from the OECD Patent Database.

The OECD Science, Technology and Industry Outlook presents, in a series of country profiles, the main features, strengths and weaknesses of national STI systems and major recent changes in national STI policy. The statistical dimension of the country profiles has drawn on the work and empirical research conducted by the OECD on the measurement of innovation and the development of internationally comparable STI indicators for policy analysis.