Innovation and technological progress are key determinants of economic growth. Innovation can also help address major global challenges such as climate change, energy, security and health, by boosting income and productivity growth, which are key to fighting poverty and other social ills. By strengthening innovation capacity, countries, regions, cities and firms can become more competitive and better prepared to face the challenges of globalisation.
There is today a great interest in understanding how governments can promote innovation and the benefits it brings, as evidenced by the discussions at the OECD Ministerial Council Meeting in 2007. At the meeting, the OECD was mandated to develop an OECD Innovation Strategy, drawing on relevant work in several policy domains, including in the area of trade policy.
To gain a better understanding of how exactly trade and investment patterns and policies affect innovation capacity, and interact with other key policies influencing innovation performance, the Trade Committee has undertaken a “Trade and Innovation Project”. In the framework of this project, Members decided to:
Permanent URL: www.oecd.org/tad/benefitlib/innovation