The Report establishes the baseline for annual updates and for monitoring the European Research Area (ERA). It is based on qualitative and quantitative data. It also provides the basis for further analysis on the observed correlation between a lower degree of openness in terms of some of the indicators for the research profession used in this report and low performance on the Innovation Union Scoreboard2, and for identifying clusters of low-performing countries. The qualitative data comes primarily from the answers to a questionnaire sent to the 38 countries covered by the Report, i.e. the EU-27 and the countries with associate status in the Seventh Framework Programme. This was supplemented by desk research. The quantitative data comes from a variety of official sources and earlier studies for DG Research and Innovation. The Report as such is complemented by Issue Sheets, which can be read stand-alone or as an introduction to the chapters in the report, by data Annexes, and by detailed Country Files of around 10-15 pages (for WBC see links below) and by 49 examples of Good Practice.

Source: EURAXESS