Publications & Documents

Efforts to respond to global challenges have greatly benefited from space technologies that are more advanced, perform more efficiently and are operating at greater scale than ever before. But as the challenges facing society grow and intensify, questions arise as to whether the space sector can continue to deliver on its promise. Reaping the full benefits of what space activities have to offer will require substantial and targeted government action. Key priorities include maintaining the continuity and quality of government civilian missions, levelling the playing field for private actors entering the market, and securing the orbital environment for future generations. This edition of the Space Economy in Figures delves into these topics, drawing from both established and novel economic and policy data sources.

The bioeconomy brings opportunities for economic growth while tackling climate change. Fossil carbon resources can be replaced by bio-based carbon resources, especially biomass. To allow these solutions to be scaled up without threats to biodiversity and the environment, it is necessary to develop the bioeconomy as a circular economy. With this carbon management approach, other sources of carbon complement biomass: industrial waste, including gases such as CO and CO2, as well as physically and chemically recycled carbon. In the future, direct air capture (DAC) may become competitive and form part of the solution. These approaches can be considered ‘circular’ because they close material loops and keep carbon recycling in the economy rather than emitting carbon to the atmosphere. This report reviews a number of hybrid technologies that can be deployed to ‘defossilise’ economic sectors and sets out policy options to bring these technologies to commercial scale.

This paper discusses five innovation policy imperatives critical to achieving green and digital transitions: coordinated government, stakeholder engagement, policy agility and experimentation, directionality and support for breakthrough innovation. The paper provides policy examples from Germany, based on the OECD Review of Innovation Policy: Germany , and other countries to illustrate in what ways countries have addressed these imperatives. Overall, the quality and scale of these policy responses need to increase if transitions are to succeed. Open questions for future policy research are also highlighted.

This paper resents a measurement framework aiming to support the collection of comprehensive and internationally comparable quantitative and qualitative information on governmental innovation support programmes and instruments. It proposes a taxonomic system with definitions, classifications and reporting conventions aligned with OECD and other international standards. The framework is intended to support future OECD measurement efforts in this area and the analysis of innovation support portfolios within and across countries.

As artificial intelligence (AI) expands its scope of applications across society, understanding its impact becomes increasingly critical. The OECD's AI and the Future of Skills (AIFS) project is developing a comprehensive framework for regularly measuring AI capabilities and comparing them to human skills. The resulting AI indicators should help policymakers anticipate AI’s impacts on education and work. This volume describes the second phase of the project: exploring three different approaches to assessing AI. First, the project explored the use of education tests for the assessment by asking computer experts to evaluate AI’s performance on OECD’s tests in reading, mathematics and science. Second, the project extended the rating of AI capabilities to tests used to certify workers for occupations. These tests present complex practical tasks and are potentially useful for understanding the application of AI in the workplace. Third, the project explored measures from direct AI evaluations. It commissioned experts to develop methods for selecting high-quality direct measures, categorising them according to AI capabilities and systematising them into single indicators. The report discusses the advantages and challenges in using these approaches and describes how they will be integrated into developing indicators of AI capabilities.

When it comes to high-tech innovations, the United States leads the path amongst OECD economies. However, in the context of the national record-breaking activities in high tech innovation, there lies distinct and growing geographical disparities. This report dives into strategies for better understanding innovation that occurs in rural places, and places outside major metropolitan areas, often going beyond science and technology. It provides analysis and recommendations to support regional development initiatives aimed at closing the gaps in innovation between rural and urban areas. The report includes a special topic chapter on the role of broadband and education in rural areas, exploring trends and providing policy recommendations to enhance rural innovation through these specific and critical framework conditions.

At a time when global trade is under pressure and countries increasingly turn to regional integration to support their development, this Spotlight is a timely read for policy makers and business leaders in Africa and beyond. It shows how harnessing the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) can support industrialisation in Egypt, and more widely in Africa, by tapping the full potential of regional supply chains, including renewable energies, pharmaceuticals, logistics and creative industries. This report builds on and enriches the Production Transformation Policy Review of Egypt: Embracing Change, Achieving Prosperity.

This report outlines a new methodology and provides a first exploratory analysis of technologies and applications that are at the core of recent advances in AI. Using AI-related keywords and technology classes, the study identifies AI-related patents protected in the United States in 2000-18. Among those, 'core' AI patents are selected based on their counts of AI-related forward citations. The analysis finds that, compared to other (AI and non-AI) patents, they are more original and general, and tend to be broader in technological scope. Technologies related to general AI, robotics, computer/image vision and recognition/detection are consistently listed among core AI patents, with autonomous driving and deep learning having recently become more prominent. Finally, core AI patents tend to spur innovation across AI-related domains, although some technologies – likely AI applications, such as autonomous driving or robotics – appear to increasingly contribute to developments in their own field.