Indicators for National Science and Technology Policy

Abstract

The purpose of this chapter is to present a survey of the development of Science and Technology (S&T) indicators and their use in national policy making as well as to provide evidence of the vulnerability of S&T indicators to manipulation. A brief history of the development of S&T indicators begins with the United States followed by their worldwide diffusion, with particular emphasis on Europe. The current status of S&T indicators and newer developments towards composite indicators, benchmarking, and scoreboarding is discussed. To investigate the robustness of innovation scoreboards empirically a sensitivity analysis of one selected case is presented. It is shown that composite scores and rank positions can vary considerably, depending on the selection process. It seems not to be too difficult to argue for a ?country friendly? selection and corresponding weighting of indicators. Thus the use of scoreboards opens space for manipulation in the policymaking system. Further research is needed on alternative methods of calculation to prevent their misuse and abuse.