PTHow can you tell whether a country innovates as a system?
The research gathered 34 years of articles on national innovation systems, sorted what is consensus from what is still disputed, and built a maturity scale to assess how well these systems work. Explained in 16 screens.
Original title: Assessing National Innovation System Sophistication: an integrated framework and maturity-based scale
Innovation is an orchestra, not a soloist
Who drives a country’s innovation? Pick an actor.
Each choice shows that actor’s role and what it cannot do on its own.
Our comparison. The orchestra image and the lines about what each actor cannot do alone belong to this interactive version. The idea comes from the thesis: national innovation arises from continuous interaction among interdependent actors, not from any single actor.
From 1841 to 2023, the concept only kept growing
The term "national innovation system" appeared in 1987, but its roots go further back. Later it gained neighbors: helices, regional systems, biomes. Since then it has appeared in more than 1,300 academic articles. Drag the slider or click the dots.
The dots are evenly spaced to fit the screen; each milestone’s year is shown below. Source: Appendix C of the thesis.
It grew so much it lost its shape
The thesis starts from a diagnosis: the concept has undergone reification. The word is hard, but the idea is simple: people began to use it as if it were a ready-made, well-defined thing, while each study understood it differently.
National, regional, sectoral, technological, triple helix, biome… About 43% of studies link the national system to other kinds of system. Without a common base, it is hard to compare, measure or improve these systems.
The thesis does not discard the concept. It reorganizes it so that it becomes useful again.
Our visual metaphor. The layers are the framings cited in the thesis (Section 2.2); the common core is what the review found consistently (Section 2.7).
2,225 articles found, 126 read in depth
The researcher searched two major scientific databases, Web of Science and Scopus, for everything published on the topic between 1990 and 2024. Hover over each layer of the funnel.
- 2,225
records found with the term "national innovation system"
- 1,397
remained after removing duplicates and incomplete records
- 285
published in the 11 leading journals that cover the topic most (ABS 2024 list, more than 10 articles each)
- 126
actually dealt with the national innovation system, had accessible full text, and were read and coded
The method follows the PRISMA protocol: every exclusion step is recorded, so that someone else can retrace the path.
34 years of research, almost all of it after 2000
More than 90% of the 126 articles came out from 2000 onwards. Most are empirical: they measure something in a real country. Few discuss what the concept means.
Source: Appendix D and Figure 2.2 of the thesis. Hover over each period.
Everyone talks about government; hardly anyone about money
The review counted how many of the 126 articles mention each actor. Government and universities dominate the conversation. Civil society and the financial sector barely appear, even though the literature itself acknowledges that they matter.
For the thesis, this imbalance signals that research tends to look at only part of the system and leaves out many of its interdependencies.
An article can mention several actors, so the total exceeds 100%. Source: Appendix E.
Consensus, dispute or surprise?
The researcher cross-checked the findings of the 126 articles and sorted each one into three groups:
Consensus (compatible findings, in the thesis): comes up often and is confirmed from study to study.
Dispute (contradictory findings): authors disagree and the debate does not build up cumulatively.
Surprise (counterintuitive findings): runs against what theory expected.
Do the same sorting alongside. For surprises, the card flips to show what was expected and what the literature found.
It is from the consensus that the thesis builds the model in the next screens.
Seven actors, one cycle, one engine
Using only what is consensus, the thesis draws the national innovation system in three layers. Pull the layers apart and explore each one.
The country is an actor too
Together, the seven actors form the national system. The system, in turn, exchanges knowledge with other countries’ systems: it takes in, shares and gives back innovation.
Rankings count what comes out; the scale looks at how it works
Global indices such as the Global Innovation Index (GII), the Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) and the Human Development Index (HDI) are useful, but each looks at one part. Choose an aspect and compare.
The scale does not throw the indices away: it uses them, together with sources such as V-Dem, the World Bank, the OECD and WIPO, as support for building its indicators.
A scale made of 31 pieces
The scale has 8 dimensions: the seven actors plus the system itself. Each dimension is assessed at each stage of the cycle (input, sharing and collaboration, output, and impact), and each combination becomes a factor with a statement that experts rate. Click a block.
The hollow block is the impact of the "system" dimension, which does not appear in the thesis’s table. That is why there are 31 factors, not 32. Source: Table 4.2 and Appendix F.
From "I agree" to a maturity level
Innovation experts (academics, researchers, entrepreneurs and public managers) say how much they agree with each statement, on a scale from 1 to 7. The answer becomes a level from 0 to 3. Click an answer.
Experts also rank the dimensions from most to least important. With that, the Fuzzy AHP method can give each dimension a different weight. Source: Table 4.1 and Section 4.3.3.
A dimension’s maturity is the sum of its levels divided by the maximum possible (3 points per factor). The system’s sophistication is the average of the dimensions. In the thesis’s example, three dimensions at 90%, 70% and 60% give 73.3%.
Assess an innovation system
Think of a country and move the sliders: each one is the average level of a dimension’s factors, from 0 (not present) to 3 (fully developed). The towers show each dimension’s maturity against the ideal (outline), and the index is the average.
System sophistication
Illustrative tool. The thesis has not yet applied the scale to any country; the scores here are yours. In the real scale, each dimension brings together 3 to 4 factors rated by experts, and the weights may come from Fuzzy AHP; here all dimensions weigh the same. The messages about the weakest point and balance are our own reading, inspired by the idea that a sophisticated system performs at a high and harmonious level.
From ranking to diagnosis
For the thesis, improving a country’s innovation is not just about investing more or producing more patents. It is about increasing the system’s capacity to coordinate, learn and adapt.
For policymakers
Instead of only knowing a position in a ranking, see where the system is strong or weak and decide where to allocate resources. It is the shift from comparison to diagnosis and strategy.
Thesis conclusionsFor emerging countries
Economies with structural constraints can innovate through external links and adaptive strategies. A maturity scale can capture that movement instead of ignoring it.
Thesis conclusionsFor each actor in the system
Companies, banks, universities and social organizations can find themselves in their own row of the scale and ask: at which stage of the cycle are we weak? Who do we need to connect with?
Our readingFor researchers
Next steps: apply the scale across several countries, validate it with statistical techniques, and track over time how systems respond to policies and technological change.
Future studies suggested in the thesisWhat this research does not say
- The scale has not yet been applied to countries. Its content was validated by experts (in two rounds), but empirical and statistical validation is still missing.
- The ratings are perceptions. Expert answers carry a degree of subjectivity.
- The model simplifies. Eight dimensions cannot capture every country’s particularities, and the integrated framework has not yet been tested empirically.
- The review has boundaries. It was limited to the 11 leading journals with the most articles on the topic and left out literature not published in journals.
HORTA, Rachel Nogueira Calcagno. Assessing National Innovation System Sophistication: an integrated framework and maturity-based scale. Doctoral thesis (Doctorate in Business Administration) — Graduate Program in Business Administration, Mackenzie Presbyterian University, São Paulo, 2026. Advisor: Prof. Dr. Fellipe Silva Martins. Co-advisor: Prof. Dr. Manuel Anibal Portugal.
Examining committee: Prof. Dr. Gilberto Perez (Mackenzie), Prof. Dr. Leonardo Vils (Uninove) and Prof. Dr. Ivano Ribeiro (Unioeste). Research supported by CAPES (Brazil’s federal agency for graduate education), including a split-site doctoral stay at the Polytechnic of Leiria, Portugal.
The thesis was written in English. This interactive version simplifies the work for a general audience; the theoretical background, the formulas and the full discussions are in the original text.