The Community Innovation Survey

The Community Innovation Survey (CIS) was originally conducted every four years, but since 2005 has been conducted every two. The UK Innovation Survey 2011, the seventh Europe-wide CIS, sampled over 28,000 UK enterprises with ten or more employees. The survey was voluntary, and was conducted through both a postal questionnaire and telephone interview for businesses that hadn’t yet completed a postal response; it achieved a 50 per cent response rate. It provides the UK data covering the three-year period from 2008 to 2010. First findings from CIS7 and more detailed analyses can be found below.

Business innovation is a vital ingredient in raising the productivity, competitiveness and growth potential of modern economies. Providing the right economic conditions for, and using appropriate policy instruments to encourage innovation in the UK is a central objective. Measuring the level of innovation activity in the UK and identifying where policy might be best targeted contributes to the pursuit of that objective. The Community Innovation Survey complements other indicators of innovativeness by providing a regular snapshot of innovation inputs and outputs. It also looks at the constraints faced by UK businesses in their innovation efforts across the range of UK industries and business enterprises. It also provides the basis for some comparisons with other European countries.

The survey includes sections on factors that hamper innovation, the impact of innovation on the business and the sources of information used. It also touches on aspects of the wider innovation process, such as the introduction of new management techniques.

The previous Community Innovation Survey, CIS6, took place in 2009. Prior to this, CIS5 was in 2007, CIS4 in 2005, CIS3 in 2001, and CIS2 in 1997. Analyses of the results of these surveys can be found below:

The CIS3 Questionnaire is available in pdf format from the following link:
CIS3 Questionnaire (PDF, 537 Kb) 

• Print this page