Oslo Manual 2018: Guidelines for Collecting, Reporting and Using Data on Innovation, 4th Edition

Abstract

Addressing the current and emerging economic, social and environmental challenges requires novel ideas, innovative approaches and greater levels of multilateral co-operation.Innovation and digitalisation are playing an increasingly important role in virtually all sectors and in the daily lives of citizens around the world.As such, policy makers are placing the "innovation imperative" at the centre of their policy agendas.The design, development and implementation of policies, however, is fraught with difficultyand even more so when international co-ordination is required.Innovation has often been regarded as 'too fuzzy' a concept to be measured and accounted for.The OECD Frascati Manual opened the way for measuring one key dimension of science, technology and innovation so that, nowadays, investment in research and development -R&Dis systematically encouraged and monitored around the world.However, policymaking today is still largely focused on what is easier to measure.There is, therefore, an urgent need to capture how ideas are developed and how they can become the tools that transform organisations, local markets, countries, the global economy and the very fabric of society.