Methods for Measuring Open Innovation’s Impact on Innovation Ecosystems in the Context of the European Innovation Scoreboard

In today’s globalized and rapidly evolving technological landscape, innovation serves as a critical driver of economic growth and competitive advantage. The concept of an innovation ecosystem has emerged to elucidate the complex interactions among various stakeholders—including public sectors, startups, academia, businesses, NGOs, and venture capitalists—who collaborate and compete to foster technological advancements and economic growth. Open innovation emphasizes leveraging external ideas alongside internal efforts to enhance innovation capabilities, fostering more dynamic and resilient systems. Additionally, learning from innovation failures plays a crucial role in shaping effective strategies for growth, as startups often translate these learnings into robust innovation frameworks. Given the increasing complexity and interconnectedness of innovation ecosystems, traditional metrics often fail to capture their dynamic and collaborative nature. The European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS) provides a comprehensive framework for assessing the innovation performance of EU countries, offering insights into the overall health and performance of innovation ecosystems. This review article addresses the need to identify metrics and methods for measuring open innovation’s impact on innovation ecosystems. Building upon foundational theories and empirical findings, this study proposes a framework for evaluating the impact of open innovation on innovation ecosystems. It integrates insights from the academic literature with EIS metrics to develop robust methods for assessing open innovation’s multifaceted influence. This review article is particularly relevant as firms and policymakers strive to understand which metrics are most affected by open innovation and how these can be leveraged to enhance the performance and sustainability of innovation ecosystems.