Innovation ecosystems
An innovation ecosystem is the set of researchers, firms, investors, intermediaries and public institutions whose interactions turn knowledge into new products, services and practices. Its strength lies less in any one actor than in the connections between them: shared infrastructure, mobile people, trusted rules and finance that matches risk. This page sets out how ecosystems form, concentrate and weaken, how their structure is measured, and what the institutions that fund and govern them can do with the evidence.
- 01In briefDefinition and scope
- 02The question4 mechanisms
- 03Key terms3
- 04FieldH3 field plate
- 05Indicators7
- 06PipelineRun graph
- 07Sources6
- 08Decision holders4
- 09Methods3
GRF · Established · service level R0
The short answer.
An innovation ecosystem is the set of researchers, firms, investors, intermediaries and public institutions whose interactions turn knowledge into new products, services and practices. Its strength lies in the connections between them, such as shared infrastructure, mobile people, trusted rules and finance across stages, which single composite indices capture poorly.
Habitat condition in Colombia.
Vegetation, land cover, fires and ocean productivity and warmth from NASA satellites, framed on Colombia as an example geography for this subject; each layer is a dated NASA product.
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Habitat condition
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Latest available
NASA GIBS / EOSDIS · ASTER GDEM (METI, NASA) · Natural Earth
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Vegetation, land cover, fires and ocean productivity and warmth from NASA satellites, framed on Colombia.Satellite and model products as NASA publishes them, each with its own date; indicators, not assessments of any place; claim ceiling INTEGRATED.
Data: NASA GIBS · ASTER GDEM · Natural EarthSources and licences
- We acknowledge the use of imagery provided by services from NASA's Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS). Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
- MODIS land products (vegetation indices, gross primary production, land cover), NASA LP DAAC and LANCE; imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
- NASA Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS), VIIRS 375 m active fire product, NASA LANCE; vector tiles via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
- GHRSST Level 4 MUR analyses, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory; distributed by the NASA Physical Oceanography DAAC (PO.DAAC); imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
- MODIS Aqua ocean colour, NASA Ocean Biology Processing Group; distributed by the NASA Ocean Biology DAAC (OB.DAAC); imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
- VIIRS near-real-time products (flood, land surface temperature, snow cover, corrected reflectance), NASA LANCE; imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
- ASTER GDEM is a product of METI and NASA (ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model V003, NASA LP DAAC); imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
- Made with Natural Earth. Free vector and raster map data @ naturalearthdata.com. Public domain
Layers and dates
- Enhanced vegetation index, rolling 8 days: MODIS Terra EVI, NASA LANCE · 13 Oct 2026
- Active fires and thermal anomalies, last day: VIIRS NOAA-20 375 m (FIRMS), NASA LANCE FIRMS · 13 Oct 2026
- Land cover type (IGBP), yearly: MODIS Terra and Aqua land cover (MCD12Q1), NASA LP DAAC · 2024
- Gross primary production, 8-day total: MODIS Aqua GPP (MYD17), NASA LP DAAC · 30 Sep 2026
- Sea surface temperature anomaly: GHRSST MUR25, NASA JPL PO.DAAC · 12 Oct 2026
- Ocean chlorophyll-a concentration: MODIS Aqua ocean colour, NASA OB.DAAC · 12 Oct 2026
- True colour: VIIRS NOAA-20 corrected reflectance, NASA LANCE · 13 Oct 2026
Innovation ecosystems: how the risk develops.
Researchers, builders and public institutions. The dossier below sets out how the risk develops, what is measured, where the data come from, how it is modelled and who decides.
Connections compound
Knowledge flows through collaboration, labour mobility and supplier links. Each new connection raises the value of the others, so dense ecosystems grow denser while sparse ones struggle to start.
Gaps between stages
Research funding, early-stage investment and scale-up finance are held by different institutions with different appetites for risk. Where one stage is thin, promising work stalls between them.
Concentration and dominance
Large platforms, leading firms and research universities attract talent, data and capital. Concentration can deepen capability and also foreclose entry, which brings competition and merger control into innovation policy.
Fragility to shocks
Ecosystems depend on a few anchor institutions, open routes for talent and stable public funding. Losing an anchor, a visa route or a funding line can unwind connections built over decades.
Terms used on this page.
Each term as this page uses it. Where a standard-setting body defines the term, the wording follows that body.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| GERD | Gross domestic expenditure on research and development, measured under the OECD Frascati Manual. |
| Innovation-active enterprise | A firm that introduced, or was working on, an innovation in the survey period, as the Oslo Manual defines it. |
| Cluster | A geographic concentration of interconnected firms and institutions in a field. |
What is measured, and how well.
Each indicator carries its unit, its cadence, the kind of source behind it and the evidence label a value would carry. No values are shown: a programme supplies them under its own authority.
| Indicator | Unit | Cadence | Source type | Label |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gross domestic expenditure on R&D by sector of performance | percent of GDP | annual | National R&D surveys under the Frascati Manual | OFFICIAL |
| Business enterprise researchers | full-time equivalents per thousand employment | annual | National R&D surveys | OFFICIAL |
| Innovation-active enterprises cooperating with universities or public research | percent of innovation-active enterprises | biennial | Community Innovation Survey | OFFICIAL |
| Public-private co-publications | count per million population | annual | Bibliometric databases | ESTIMATED |
| Venture capital investment by stage | percent of GDP | annual | Official venture statistics and commercial databases | REPORTED |
| International co-invention | percent of patent families with foreign co-inventors | annual | Patent databases | ESTIMATED |
| Researcher mobility between sectors and countries | count of researchers changing affiliation | annual | Bibliometric affiliation tracking | MODELLED |
From sources to decisions.
The topic as a computational graph: named sources feed the methods, an evidence review gates the outputs, and the decisions stay with the authorities that hold them.
Fig. 02Nodes carry their type, two metric rows and a state; connectors show what feeds what; dashed frames name the owners; the timeline is the cadence. Design of the pipeline, not a record of a run.
Where the evidence comes from.
Named public datasets and institutional records, each with its licence class. Sources by agreement are used only under their terms and never republished.
| Source | What it gives | Licence class |
|---|---|---|
| OECD Main Science and Technology Indicators (MSTI) | R&D expenditure, personnel and government R&D budgets by country and sector | Open, attribution (OECD terms) |
| Eurostat Community Innovation Survey | Firm innovation activity, cooperation and barriers, harmonised under the Oslo Manual | Open aggregates, attribution; microdata by research access |
| WIPO Global Innovation Index | Innovation input and output indicators and science and technology cluster data by economy | Free, attribution (WIPO terms) |
| European Innovation Scoreboard (European Commission) | Comparative innovation performance of EU member states and neighbours | Free reuse, attribution |
| EPO PATSTAT | Bibliographic and legal-status data on patent applications worldwide | Licensed by the European Patent Office |
| EC-OECD STIP Compass | National science, technology and innovation policy initiatives, instruments and budgets | Free, attribution (OECD terms) |
Who decides, and what the evidence serves.
Innovation Nexus prepares evidence. The decisions below are taken by the authorities named, under their own rules, and never by the platform.
| Who decides | The question | Evidence this page serves |
|---|---|---|
| Ministries of science, innovation and economy | Where public funding, infrastructure or brokerage would strengthen the ecosystem most | Ecosystem maps with anchors and gaps; funding-stage analyses |
| Innovation agencies and research councils | Which collaboration instruments to run, renew or close | Cooperation indicators from innovation surveys; evaluation designs for each instrument |
| Competition authorities | Whether an acquisition or a practice forecloses entry in an innovative market | Concentration of talent, data, patents and capital around the parties; prior merger-review records |
| Immigration and higher-education authorities | How visa and research-mobility rules affect the talent flows ecosystems rely on | Researcher mobility estimates with their method stated |
Outputs this topic produces
- Ecosystem maps of actors, links and anchor institutions, with data gaps marked
- Funding-stage gap analyses across research, early-stage and scale-up finance
- Dependency registers showing which links rest on a single institution or route
- Programme designs for intermediaries such as clusters and technology centres
What experts ask.
Ecosystem questions are about connections, not only capacities.
- Who are the actors, and how strong are the links between them?
- How do ideas, people, capital and data move through the ecosystem?
- Where do promising ideas stall, and why?
- What role do public institutions play: funder, customer, regulator, convener or all four?
- Is the ecosystem open to newcomers, or dominated by a few incumbents?
Mechanisms and drivers.
Innovation emerges from interaction. Universities produce knowledge and graduates; firms turn knowledge into products; investors take on risk; public institutions fund research, buy solutions and set rules; intermediaries such as incubators and technology transfer offices broker connections. When any link is weak, for example when researchers and firms rarely meet, or public buyers cannot purchase new solutions, the system underperforms regardless of individual excellence.
Ecosystems are path-dependent: early successes attract talent and capital, which attract more. That creates strong clusters but also concentration and exclusion, and it makes ecosystems hard to build from scratch. Shocks travel through the same links, so the loss of a major firm, funder or university programme can weaken a whole ecosystem.
How it is studied, and where the methods stop.
| Method or data | What it shows | Limits |
|---|---|---|
| Network and collaboration analysis | Links between actors through co-publication, co-patenting and contracts | Formal links miss informal collaboration |
| Innovation surveys | Firm innovation activity and barriers | Self-reported and periodic |
| Case studies of ecosystems | How specific ecosystems developed | Hard to generalize from unique histories |
| Systems mapping | Flows and bottlenecks across the system | Depends on the judgement of those mapping it |
How it is studied, and what the methods cannot say.
- Policy, institutional and decision scienceMandate and gap mapping · Programme evaluation design · Comparative regulatory analysisApplied here
- Systems engineeringRequirements traceability for AI governance · Readiness gates for transfer programmesApplied here
- Artificial intelligence and machine learningCoding policy and legal texts · Mapping patents and papers to technologiesApplied here
Questions and answers.
What is the difference between an ecosystem and a cluster?
Why not use a single innovation index?
Can strong ecosystems be built by policy?
Can an innovation ecosystem be designed?
Why do public institutions matter so much?
Does Innovation Nexus support specific ventures?
Around Innovation Nexus.
Bring your expertise to this field.
The current service level is R0: information and enquiries. An enquiry receives a reference and names the next step; applications, payments, compute allocations and registrations open only when their team, terms and review capacity exist.