Evaluation of innovation indicators: The Turkish case as a developing country

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Tezin Türü: Yüksek Lisans

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Bilim ve Teknoloji Politikası Çalışmaları Anabilim Dalı, Türkiye

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2009

Tezin Dili: İngilizce

Öğrenci: AYŞEGÜL GÜNEL

Danışman: Mehmet Teoman Pamukcu

Özet:

In knowledge society theory, wealth is created by production of knowledge and information which are basic sources of innovation. Innovation has vital importance for providing firms survival and competitive power together with enabling countries sustained economic progress and competitiveness. Because of its importance, measuring innovation becomes necessary for evaluating countries’ performance and policymaking. First attempts to develop measurement framework for innovation was achieved by OECD via the Oslo Manual. Then, Latin American and Caribbean countries developed the Bogota Manual. As demonstrated by the Bogota example, industrial structures of developing countries including Turkey differ from the developed ones, which leads to failure of the methods used in developed countries for measuring innovation. In this thesis, the general innovation measurement concept and innovation systems in developing countries are discussed first in order for reflecting national capabilities of Turkey. Then, widely used innovation indicators of investment in R&D, human sources, patents and utility models, scientific publications and high technology exports are evaluated in terms of measurement scale, advantages and disadvantages and inadaptability together with offering basic alternative or complementary solutions when possible and with bringing out points to pay attention if they are bound to be used.