Räumliche Verteilung der Innovationsleistung in der Schweiz

Innovation and economic growth are closely linked to
each other. Together, they are considered an important
determinant of a nation’s wealth. In the light of weak
economic growth in Switzerland in the 1990’s, a good
deal was spoken and written about these two indicators.
In order to develop and implement appropriate
actions for increasing innovation activity, accurate
information about current activity in this area is essential.
Thus, the paper presents an analysis of Switzerland’s
innovation activity at a subnational level. For
this purpose, the innovation process was divided into
three phases: innovation input, innovation throughput,
and innovation output. A set of appropriate indicators
for each phase was defined. A quantitative analysis of
the indicators resulted in indices for each phase, the
total of which is referred to as the overall index. The
overall index was seen to shed light on an entity’s total
innovation activity. The study indicates that on the
whole, the economic centres of the country are more
innovative than rural regions. However, this was not
the case for all phases of the innovation process or for
all rural areas.