Managing and reporting knowledge-based resources and processes in research organisations: specifics, lessons learned and perspectives

Across Europe, different kinds of research organisations are confronted with the challenge of managing their most valuable resources, which are knowledge based, in a more explicit and transparent manner. Over the last few years a small number of research organisations have started to implement new instruments for managing and measuring their knowledge-based resources and processes. The research organisations ARC (Austria) and DLR (Germany) have been the first European research organisations to publish Intellectual Capital Reports for their entire organisation, using a similar model, which addresses both the issues of internal management as well as external reporting. In both organisations, the newly established instruments are based on an indicator-based system. In this system, indicators about the different forms of Intellectual Capital (IC), the value-added processes and the results of the organisational knowledge-production processes, are integrated. Based on the experiences of implementing and running the system for 4 years, various aspects and the lessons that have been learned, are discussed. One of the main benefits of these IC measurement and reporting systems is that the organisations learn about their knowledge-production processes. However, there are some trade-offs between internal management use and external reporting, as well as limits in comparing indicators between organisations.