Report from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council on the implementation of Decision No 1608/2003/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on science and technology statistics

Official statistics on science, technology and innovation in the European Union are largely based on Decision No 1608/2003/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 July 2003 concerning the production and development of Community statistics on science and technology. The Commission has implemented this Decision in close cooperation with Member States through regulatory measures, voluntary data collections and through the Union's statistical authority (Eurostat)'s own data production.

This report evaluates the implementation of the individual statistical actions listed in Article 2 of the Decision. These are aimed at establishing a statistical information system on science, technology and innovation to support and monitor EU policies. The report mainly covers developments since the previous report in 2011.

Commission Regulations (EC) No 753/2004 and No 1450/2004 implementing Decision 1608/2003/EC relate to two data collections that are regularly performed within the European Statistical System (ESS) by Member States’ statistical authorities. Research and development (R&D) and innovation statistics collected under the Regulations, together with statistics on human resources in science and technology, high-technology industries and knowledge-based services, and patents, have become recognised and widely-quoted reference data for monitoring EU science, technology and innovation policy.

From the reference year 2012 onwards, science, technology and innovation data collections will gradually come under the new Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 995/2012, with effect from the October 2013 data transmissions. Commission Regulations (EC) No 753/2004 and No 1450/2004 have thereby been repealed.

The quality of the statistical data has become more important, due to policy setting and monitoring requirements and, in particular, the fact that policy targets are set on the basis of statistical information. The Europe 2020 strategy has set a precise target of raising combined public and private R&D investment levels to 3% of GDP. It is therefore of the utmost importance that the quality of the measurements is (and remains) of a high standard.

The adoption of the above Commission Regulations implementing Decision No 1608/2003/EC improved science, technology and innovation data quality. This has been followed by gradual on-going improvements and close monitoring of quality. Agreeing and implementing international standards and methodology, and constant discussion of their relevance in a dynamic measurement framework, should help to keep the statistics up-to-date and of first-class quality.

Further development work on science, technology and innovation statistics will take account of policy priorities and the development of the ESS as a whole. Given the priorities set in the Europe 2020 strategy and its supporting actions, a balance will be sought between novel solutions and measures to further improve existing science, technology and innovation statistics. The link with other business statistics will be strengthened by including R&D and innovation statistics in a future ‘Framework Regulation integrating business statistics’ currently under discussion within the ESS.

• Primary Source

EUR-Lex: COM(2014)211: Follow the progress of this report through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2014:211:FIN

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