issues such as poverty, health, urbanization, access to water, and climate change are of a global nature, at the same ti
AVAILABLE INDICATORS TO EVALUATE THE MEDITERRANEAN PARTNER COUNTRIES AND TURKEY INNOVATION STATUS Authors: G. Perez, A. Soraci, M. Valiente SUMMARY/RATIONALE Nowadays, one of the most challenging topics of Europe is to support and to put forward, in particular in the Mediterranean area, the concept of Innovation. Issues relating to the transfer of knowledge acquired in the Mediterranean area, should also be targeted with specific support and the creation of favourable and stable conditions for innovation, ensuring the availability of the skills needed for the successful deployment of new technologies. However, how to evaluate the evolution of indicators in the Mediterranean through the last years with some indicators? There are several available indicators to check countries’ innovation status. Among them, the Global Innovation Index (GII), together with the corresponding annual reviews, becomes a remarkable tool to check the innovation capacity of the countries. Such index has demonstrated that innovation capacity must be measured beyond what it does locally, in other words, to measure how nation’s innovations impact on the entire globe. Even more, when issues such as poverty, health, urbanization, access to water, and climate change are of a global nature, at the same time, both the challenges and their solutions have local consequences. Therefore, those innovative breakthroughs that provide local solutions in the developing world can have a global impact and can provide an opportunity for sharing among other emerging nations for mutual benefit. To this end, 5TOI_4EWAS projecti has checked the evolution of the innovation-related indicators that constitute the sub-pillars linked to elements of the national economy that enable innovative activities: (1) Institutions, (2) Human capital and research, (3) Infrastructure, (4) Market sophistication, and (5) Business sophistication or those sub-pillars that are the results of innovative activities within the economy (6) Knowledge and technology outputs and (7) Creative outputs. A total of 82 indicators for each country have been reviewed. The study covers some Mediterranean Partner Countries (MPCs) such as Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey, during the period 2011-2016. Further detailed information for each indicator is available through deliverable D3.3. accessible at www.5toi.eu. The information derived from such indicators allowed to determine for each country the corresponding Global Innovation (GII), Innovation Input (IIS), Innovation Output (IOS) Index and the corresponding Innovation Efficiency Ratio (IE). The IE allows to check how much innovation output a given country is getting for its inputs. TIME EVOLUTION OF GII, IIS, IE AND IOS SCORES FROM 2011-2016 FOR THE TARGET MPCs and TURKEY The heatmap summary provided below let to compare regional and sub-regional trends and obtain snapshots for some economies. The MPCs economies regions and Turkey are included along with average scores by income and regional groups. Some observations are noteworthy. For example, the average values of the target MPCs are below the regional values, except for the innovation efficiency (see Table 1). Becomes relevant the difference in terms of institutions, infrastructures and market sophistication as input innovation indicators, while slight differences are observed for innovation outputs indicators. The average values of these MPCs are above other regions of the world such as the Central and Southern Asia or the Sub-Saharan Africa, except for Market sophistication indicator, a fact that reveals that national policies should be reinforced in this sense to increase the exploitation of the generated innovations. On the other hand, the need to reinforce the target MPCs and Turkey national policies and investment to improve all the input innovation indicators to close the gap with developed regions is clear. Low Gross Domestic Product (GDP) countries The figures represented for Egypt and the observed evolution, reflect a worrying decrease of GII over years due to the decrease of innovation efficiency, especially relevant for the last 2016 as a result of an important decrease of innovation outputs, rather than the slight increase of innovation outputs. In the case of Egypt, the obtained scores for the different indicators are far away from the regional average. Morocco reflects a promising evolution as the GII values demonstrate, there is a slight increase of the innovation efficiency as a result of the continuous increase of the innovation input sub-index and the maintenance of the innovation output sub-index. Morocco is the clear example of how policies can better exploit the generated innovation inputs, contributing to improve the country development in the near future.
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While low GDP economies in the MPC region continue to progress, they are often unable to introduce continuous improvements as wealthy nations do. The benefits of legacy investments in human capital and the institutional context are difficult to replicate rapidly. The investments in the educational infrastructure in these countries may take years to show results in terms of skilled graduates and even more time to yield tangible innovative outputs. This fact raises the pressure and the need for these nations to ask to themselves if they are not properly targeting their policies for accelerate their progress in driving innovation. In terms of ranking evolution, Morocco and Egypt show opposite trends. Morocco has constantly evolved since 2011 its ranking, improving the obtained GII yearly, as a result of an advance in innovation efficiency derived from the remarkable progress in innovation outputs rather than the slight innovation inputs. In the case of Egypt, the involution must be associated to a continuous loss of innovation efficiency as a result of both innovation inputs and outputs that have not properly evolved.
Upper-middle GDP countries The continuous improvement of Algeria in terms of GII, is a consequence of the increase of innovation input sub-index and the slight improvement of innovation output sub index. However, such improvements have not reflected an increase in terms of innovation efficiency during the last five years. Unfortunately, such improvements are insufficient and all the indicators remain for Algeria below the regional observed values, closer to those of low-income countries rather than upper-middle income. Jordan reflects a similar behavior as the observed for Egypt within low-income countries. While originally, Jordan appeared highly ranked at early 2011 with GII and innovation efficiencies above the regional average as a result of remarkable innovation inputs, the continuous deterioration of innovation output-sub-index damages the overall innovation system. This trend is especially remarkable through 2016. Therefore, policies addressing the better exploitation of the innovation inputs are required for the coming years. This situation can be transferred word to word for the Lebanon case, where the decrease was even more dramatic from 2011 to 2012, and now remains stable, being recovered the innovation efficiency that through 2016 reflects better values than those observed at the regional level. Tunisia also demonstrates similar trends than those reflected by Jordan and Lebanon. Turkey is the top innovation achiever from the evaluated countries due to a continuous increase of the GII during the years. The reasons for such enhancement should be explained over two other parameters, the evolution of the IIS and the slight increase of the IOS. However, such improvement is not derived from a better innovation efficiency, which always was above the regional average values. Table 1 Heatmap for Turkey and MPC economies vs regional and income group averages (2016 scores)ii
WORST COUNTRY/ECONOMY ALGERIA EGYPT JORDAN LEBANON MOROCCO TUNISIA TURKEY AVERAGE REGION NORTHERN AFRICA AND WESTERN ASIA NORTHERN AMERICA EUROPE SOUTH EAST ASIA, EAST ASIA, OCEANIA LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN CENTRAL AND SOUTHERN ASIAN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA INCOME LEVEL HIGH INCOME UPPER-MIDDLE INCOME LOWER-MIDDLE INCOME LOW INCOME
AVERAGE
BEST
GII 24,50 26,00 30,00 32,70 32,30 30,60 39,00 30,73
1 45,70 39,00 62,60 52,10 57,50 58,30 54,60 52,83
2 28,20 27,30 25,40 29,80 32,30 38,00 39,20 31,46
3 37,20 38,30 38,50 37,50 48,60 41,60 43,60 40,76
4 31,70 34,20 32,00 37,90 38,00 29,00 47,70 35,79
5 21,20 20,00 21,50 31,70 18,30 23,70 27,60 23,43
IIS 32,80 31,80 36,00 37,80 38,90 38,10 42,50 36,84
6 17,70 18,50 21,70 22,40 22,90 19,90 29,10 21,74
7 14,60 21,80 26,40 32,80 28,20 26,10 42,00 27,41
IOS 16,10 20,20 24,10 27,60 25,60 23,00 35,50 24,59
IE
33,83 58,05 46,85 44,59 30,29 27,73 25,56
60,45 88,70 76,00 69,70 52,93 49,47 52,42
32,02 54,99 46,73 42,99 26,29 24,83 17,98
44,40 62,04 52,61 50,88 40,14 35,02 28,21
42,12 80,12 49,81 56,93 42,30 40,63 35,92
26,91 49,47 40,39 41,50 30,77 25,78 27,56
41,18 67,06 53,11 52,40 38,49 35,15 32,42
24,22 48,73 37,57 36,06 18,09 19,92 18,41
28,72 49,36 43,61 37,48 26,09 20,71 19,00
26,47 49,04 40,59 36,77 22,09 20,32 18,70
0,63 0,73 0,75 0,71 0,57 0,59 0,58
48,33 33,50 27,87 24,15
77,74 60,67 48,52 49,86
48,84 30,99 21,75 16,40
56,26 41,80 33,12 25,74
53,59 43,68 40,13 33,34
42,07 29,61 25,88 29,95
55,70 41,35 33,88 31,06
37,85 23,03 21,01 17,74
44,09 28,26 22,71 16,73
40,97 25,65 21,86 17,23
0,73 0,62 0,64 0,56
0,49 0,64 0,67 0,73 0,66 0,60 0,84 0,67
(1) Institutions, (2) Human capital and research, (3) Infrastructure, (4) Market sophistication, and (5) Business (6) Knowledge and technology outputs and (7) Creative outputs. Global Innovation (GII), Innovation Input (IIS), Innovation Output (IOS)
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The evaluation of ranking evolution for all the evaluated countries with upper-middle income level and low GDP countries, enables the observation of divergent trends. While Turkey and Algeria positively evolve the obtained GII values yearly, Lebanon, Tunisia and especially Jordan reflect marked situation degradation. The reasons of the observed decreasing trends are a consequence of the great variations in terms of innovation efficiency due to the decrease of innovation inputs scores and reduced improvement of innovation outputs.
EDUCATION AS A HUMAN ASPECT OF INNOVATION As a first set of indicators, the sum of certain indicators can provide a measure on the education as a human aspect of innovation focusing on both the role that education systems play in building competencies for science, technology, and innovation and on how this human capital is actually deployed in the labour market. These indicators position countries by looking at the performance of students from a young age and throughout the education system, with a special focus on those with scientific skills; those with science and engineering degrees; and doctoral holders, who are specifically trained for research. Additional indicators look beyond the education systems to labour market outcomes (the occupation dimension), the dimension of skills and related mismatches, and finally the mobility dimension.
Education as a human aspect of innovation Israel (GII21) HIGH INCOME Turkey (GII42) Qatar (GII50) Saudi Arabia (GII49) United Arab Emirates (GII41) Cyprus (GII31) Lebanon (GII70) UPPER-MIDDLE INCOME Tunisia (GII77) Iran (GII78) Egypt (GII107) Bahrain (GII57) REGIONAL AVERAGE Jordan GII(82) Kuwait (GII67) LOW-MIDDLE INCOME Morocco (GII72) Algeria (GII113) Oman (GII73) 0
50
100
150
200
School life expectancy Pupil-teacher ratio, secondary Tertiary inbound mobility QS university ranking average score top 3 universities
250
300
350
400
450
500
Assessment in reading, mathematics, and science Tertiary enrolment Researchers Firms offering formal training
According to the sum of the countries scores on this subset of indicators, bottom economies by income group include mostly underperforming economies (economies performing at levels below expected according to their level of development) in addition to economies performing only on par with expectations. However, the number of
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economies classified as underperformers decreases as the income group moves from high to low income. That means that higher-income economies are more reliant on the human factor to improve innovation performance. In this sense, countries such as Morocco and Algeria must improve the assessment in reading, mathematics and science, the pupil-teacher ratio, the tertiary inbound mobility or the researchers’ indicators, to capitalize the relevant school life expectancy they have. Finally, Oman and Kuwait reflect the “paradox of plenty”, where, high GII rankings might conceal below-par performances, often exhibit relative shortcomings in important areas in which this effect does not prevail. INNOVATION QUALITY Innovation is not only about volume: Quality counts, too, in terms of innovation quality—as measured by university performance, the reach of scholarly articles, and the international dimension of patent applications. Measuring the quality of innovation-related input and output indicators as well as their quantity becomes critical for an accurate assessment. To address this issue and better measure innovation quality, three indicators collected through the Global Innovation Index Annual review allows to check the innovation quality within Turkey and MPCs. In this sense, the information of the quality of local universities (determined through QS university rankings average score of top 3 universities) the internationalization of local inventions (determined through Nº patent families filed in three offices) and the number of citations that local research documents receive abroad (through the Nº of citable documents H index) contribute to generate the corresponding figure provided below. Within the region, three countries demonstrate higher innovation quality than their peers in terms of GDP, while Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia and especially Algeria reflect a lower innovation quality than their regional neighbours in terms of GDP. The ranking of Egypt, despite their income classification worth reflect the effect of Egyptian universities. In overall, Turkey, Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan have a remarkable number of top universities at the QS world university ranking level. This indicator is clearly relevant in the case of Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria, where the lack of remarkable figures affects the overall innovation quality and becomes a relevant field of action for the future policies to be developed. However, the general observed low number of patent families filed also hinders the overall innovation quality in the region, when compared with other regions worldwide or the corresponding classification of incomes. In this sense, further efforts should be addressed by the national and regional policies on this regard.
Innovation Quality accodring to GII 2016 High Income TK EG LB Upper-Middle Income JO Lower-Middle Income MO TN Lower Income DZ
0
20
QS university ranking, average score top 3
40
60
80
Patent families filed in 2+ offices/bn PPP$ GDP
100
120
140
Citable documents H index
CONCLUSSIONS The question is: How can MPCs and Turkey make—and sustain—the shift to an innovation-driven economy? Technology adoption alone is no longer sufficient to maintain a high-growth scenario. Continuous and longer-term investment in innovation is now crucial to spur further catch-up. As a result, national innovation policy programmes and the corresponding institutional arrangements have flourished in low- and middle- income countries. The gathered information presented in this paper could provide valuable insights to some of the Turkish and MPCs’ leading authorities. Certainly, there are many nuances to consider, but some of the basics are remarkably consistent:
Address and engage all stakeholders and support them in developing a strong ecosystem of innovation.
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Nurture an environment that strives for and values collaboration. Engage new partners from diverse and varied backgrounds. Keep pace with the moving targets of new technologies and market opportunities. Develop policies to attract international talent, young entrepreneurs, and investors. Set clear goals and develop appropriate measures to track progress. Learn from, and be inspired by, the best.
Absolute spending on R&D or absolute figures on the number of domestic researchers, on the number of science and engineering graduates, or on scientific publications do not guarantee a successful innovation system. In fact, all too often a higher share of science and engineering graduates, for example, is pursued as a panacea for creating sound innovation systems. Clearly regulators and policy makers have to start somewhere, and this factor is easily measurable. Yet the creation of sound innovation systems with solid innovation inputs, sophisticated markets, a thriving business sector, and sturdy linkages among innovation actors and assessing their performance is more complex than aiming at increasing one innovation input variable, as evidenced in the GII model. Yet there is more to the story. High-quality innovation inputs and outputs are often the reflection of other factors that make an innovation ecosystem healthy, vibrant, and productive. Ideally, these systems become selfsustainable, bottom-up, and without a recurrent need for policy or government to drive innovation. How best to create such an organic innovation system poses an interesting dilemma for governments and their role in future innovation policy models. On the one hand, it is now accepted that public funding institutions / public bodies continue to play an important role in addressing the central governments, the regional governments or institutions, the executive agencies, the public procurers generating innovation. The boundaries between industrial and innovation policy are slim or non-existent; both play an important role. In particular, in the last few decades, Asian economies have benefited from a strong and strategic coordination role of governments in innovation. The role of governments in spurring innovation in high-income countries in Northern America and Europe has also been strong throughout history. It can be argued that the role of governments, and also of public and coordinated private investments, might be even more significant today than it has been in the past. Driving future innovation in the fields such as transports, health, and communications is becoming more complex and costly. On the other hand, if governments overreach on selecting innovative technologies, they might quickly end up diluting the possibility of self-sustaining organic innovation ecosystems. Providing enough space for entrepreneurship and innovation; the right incentives and encouragement to bottom-up forces such as individuals, students, small firms, and others; and a certain ‘freedom to operate’ that often challenges the status quo is part of the equation. Surely MPCs and Turkey are well advised to avoid over relying on government forces as the sole driver to orchestrating a sound innovation system. In this sense, emphasis in MPCs and Turkey should be placed on gaining knowledge as much as on providing the right framework conditions that stimulate a process of innovation and knowledge diffusion: political stability and supportive institutions; good and widespread technical and tertiary education to enhance absorptive capacity; reliable and widespread basic infrastructure; excellent provision of information and communication technology (ICT) property rights; and stronger links and interaction between publicly funded research institutes and private companies. MPCs and Turkey must invest in innovation, and governmental support is crucial for promoting it, it is the main role of the governments to create the condition for developing a National Innovation Systemiii. The importance of innovation is widely recognized and innovation policies occupy a central role in their development plans and strategies. The innovation is seen as key to addressing pressing societal problems such as pollution, health issues, poverty, and unemployment. The role and significance of innovation goes beyond the objective of economic success. Rather it should be seen through the lens of inclusive development because it can address poverty and health issues, and through the lens of sustainable development because it can address problems of pollution and energy provision.
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In overall, the MPCs and Turkey increasingly design policies intended to increase their innovation capacity. Innovation policies have taken different forms, depending on the countries’ perceived needs. Their impact has also varied across countries at similar levels of development. Certain MPCs have managed to continually improve their innovation inputs and outputs. Others still struggle. Throughout the years it has been observed that in MPCs it is more incremental than radical innovation that takes place in an informal setting more often than it does in formal R&D laboratories. Therefore, MPCs and Turkey Policy makers are urged to step up public investments in innovation and create the legislative and regulatory conditions to boost short-term demand and to raise long-term growth potential. Successful innovation strategies cannot afford ‘stop-and-go’ approaches: if R&D expenses or incentives or regulations to innovators are not sustained, the progress accumulated in previous years can vanish quickly.
REFERENCES i ii
http://www.5toi.eu
Global Innovation Index Reports https://www.globalinnovationindex.org iii OECD, 1997
2011-2016.
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(March-June
2017).
Retrieved
from
