This is a document conducted by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. The national innovation systems approach stresses that the flows of technology and information among people, enterprises and institutions are key to the innovative process. Innovation and technology development are the result of a complex set of relationships among actors in the system, which includes enterprises, universities and government research institutes. The measurement and assessment of national innovation systems has centred on four types of knowledge or information flows:

• interactions among enterprises,
• interactions among enterprises, universities and public research institutes,
• diffusion of knowledge and technology to enterprises,
• personnel mobility.

A main goal is to improve the comparability of studies across countries by encouraging those engaging in analysis of innovation systems to focus first on measuring a core set of knowledge flows using similar indicators. Many statistical data are given.