4 Data Sources
The regional innovation benchmarks are based on three related surveys of innovation
activity among manufacturing plants carried out over last decade. The first of these
(the Product Development Survey or PDS) was a postal survey conducted between
October 1994 and April 1995 relating to plants’ innovation activities over the 1991-93
period (Roper et al., 1996). The PDS survey covered all regions in the UK, the
Republic of Ireland and Germany with the following response rates: 23.7 per cent
(1300 responses) in Germany, 20.6 per cent (1700 responses) in the UK and 32 per
cent (520 responses) in the Republic of Ireland. For the regional benchmark analysis
we focus on the respondent plants in Northern Ireland (348), the Republic of Ireland
(529) and Bavaria (229).
Our second survey of innovative activity (the Product and Process Development
Survey or PPDS) covered Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland only and related
to plants’ innovation activity over the 1994-96 period. The survey was conducted
between November 1996 and March 1997 and response rates were 43 per cent (293
responses in Northern Ireland and 28.6 per cent (459 responses) in Republic of Ireland
(see Roper and Hewitt-Dundas, 1998). Our most recent survey the Product and
Process Development Survey 3 or PPDS3) covered Northern Ireland, the Republic of
Ireland, and Bavaria and was undertaken between October 1999 and April 2000
(Roper and Anderson, 2000). Plants were asked about their innovation activity over
the 1997 to 1999 period with response rates as follows: Northern Ireland, 41 per cent
(419 responses); the Republic of Ireland, 29 per cent (624 responses); and Bavaria 16
per cent (345 responses).
The three surveys have a number of common features which make them ideal for
deriving regional innovation benchmarks. First, the surveys were structured to be
regionally representative, or as in the case of the PDS in Germany, were constructed
with large enough sampling fractions to enable regionally representative results to be
derived (see Love and Roper, 2000). Second, within each region, sample structures
were constructed to expose differences in innovation behaviours between plants in
different employment sizebands (Acs and Audretsch, 1988, 1993) and manufacturing
sectors (Geroski, 1990). Perhaps more important, however, is the fact that each of the
surveys were conducted at plant (or establishment) level rather than at the level of
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