Making and Remaking the Measurement of Science and Technology: The International Dimension

In most if not every discussion of policy, statistics play a leading role. Statistics serve as evidence, so it is claimed. Such is the case with statistics on science and technology. This chapter is concerned with documenting how, over history, the international dimension got into statistics on science and technology. More specifically, the chapter documents the policy issue that has influenced the development of official statistics after World War II—industrial competitiveness between countries or “gaps” between Europe and the United States—and the representation of science and technology involved in the statistics. Using the OECD as an emblematic example, we suggest that the measurement of the international dimension of science and technology has not progressed much in the last 40 years. The same indicators that defined the phenomenon in the 1970s are those included in the more recent standardized manuals of globalization.