PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
(15 July 2026)

The Government uses a range of international and UK metrics to track progress on innovation.

For international comparisons, we use several metrics such as rankings from the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Global Innovation Index, data from the OECD Science and Technology Indicators, and numbers of patents, academic publications, citations and other bibliometric data from several other sources.

To understand UK innovation, we use official statistics such as the number of innovation active businesses from the UK Innovation Survey, R&D expenditure by government and businesses from the Office for National Statistics, and R&D tax credit data from HMRC. We also utilise metrics on university knowledge exchange and commercialisation from the Higher Education Statistics Agency.

The Government also uses our Innovation Clusters Map to identify emerging clusters. The 2025 update will allow year-by-year performance tracking of priority clusters with metrics such as levels of public R&D investment, company formation, and job creation.