Benchmarking industry—science relations: the role of framework conditions

Within the Framework of the EU initiative ‘Benchmarking Europe's Industrial Competitiveness’, a project benchmarking industry-science relations (ISR) was carried out covering eight EU countries, the USA and Japan. In these countries ISR were compared in order to assess the role of framework conditions in the interaction between industry (private business-enterprise sector) and science (higher-education institutions and public-sector research establishments), and to recommend areas for policy improvement. Benchmarking ISR focuses on identifying good practices in shaping ISR-relevant framework conditions given the specific features of a national innovation system. The paper presents the methodology employed and the main findings.