A gap in competencies or in capabilities?: the role of regional universities in developing scientific and technological skills in Campania

A gap in competencies or in capabilities?: the role of regional universities in developing scientific and technological skills in Campania The paper assesses the role of universities in resolving the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) skills gap in the Campania region of Southern Italy. The results are shown to hinge on a doubled supply/demand model, involving a first upstream stage (logically if not chronologically) of derived demands for and supplies of STEM-based skill development within universities, and a second downstream stage of the usage of these skills in industrial firms. The main objective of this work is to re-examine the role of conventional ‘knowledge capital’ arguments for the role of universities in development processes in catching-up regions of the EU – i.e. human capital and R&D capital, or what will be identified here as ‘competencies’ – as against what we refer to as ‘capabilities’ arguments, reflected here in better ways in which universities might adapt to the actual needs of industry for highly skilled workers and research outcomes. The results suggest that the STEM skills gap is not clearly a deficiency just in capabilities, but more so in the links between capabilities and competencies. Moreover, the STEM universities are trying to feed the interaction with industry, however it is still left mostly to the personal relationships of the professors or their administrative counterparts, e.g. head of the T&T office, and/or to placement. Key words: Derived demand and supply, STEM subjects, Mezzogiorno region, skills gap, competencies and capabilities.

Mind the science and technology skills gap

This policy brief shows new evidence on the causes of the S&T skills gap in European regions. It highlights that the S&T skills gap is mainly due to shortages of capabilities that are crucial to support the innovation and growth of firms and the other actors of the regional system, including university and government. From these findings, ad hoc policy implications upon the development of innovation capabilities and skills for the European Research Strategy and Innovation agenda are proposed and future research issues identified.JRC.J.2-Knowledge for Growt

High-growth, innovative enterprises in Europe. Counting them across countries and sectors

High-growth, innovative enterprises are a key source of business dynamics, but little is known about their actual share in the enterprise population. This is due to an inherent uncertainty in how to define the threshold that distinguishes high-growth firms from non-high-growth firms – illustrated by the lack of agreement between the definitions applied by Eurostat and the OECD. This explorative study aims to help measure the share of high-growth, innovative enterprises in the European enterprise population, test how the choice of definition affects their share. We introduce a methodology to address the uncertainty in the definition, and compute national and sectoral average scores for high-growth and innovation in order to assess their distribution across countries and sectors of economic activity. We test the impact of a number of alternative definitions on a pooled sample of 92,960 European firms observed by the 2012 wave of the Community Innovation Survey (CIS). Our finding suggests that the share of high-growth, innovative enterprises in Europe may range between 0.1 to 10%, depending on the definitions, and the outcomes are most sensitive to the growth measure (employment- or turnover-based) and threshold (absolute or relative), as well as the degree of novelty expected of the innovations introduced by firms. With the help of aggregate measures, we observe a trade-off between high-growth and innovation performance at the country-level, which disappears at the overall European sectoral level. This observation highlights the importance of structural differences across EU Member States in terms of firms’ innovation profile, size and associated high-growth performance.JRC.I.1-Modelling, Indicators and Impact Evaluatio

Sailing through the storms towards Treasure Island: The relationships between strategies, obstacles and firm performance

Companies devise strategies to successfully navigate the treacherous waters of an uncertain business environment. They need to tackle regulatory or market obstacles in order to succeed and eventually achieve strong growth performance. This study aims to better understand the complex relationship between strategies, obstacles and firm performance. It uses regression techniques on a cross-national homogeneous sample of 37,150 European companies based in 14 Member States in order to study the correlation between: i) firms’ perceptions about the importance of their strategies and the obstacles they face, and ii) firms’ innovation and economic performance. The findings point out that the firms pursuing cost reduction strategies and perceiving the lack of demand and of adequate finance as important obstacles experience poor performance. By contrast, those pursuing adaptability strategies and perceiving the lack of qualified personnel as an important obstacle grow faster, and those with explicit product innovation strategies innovate more. Moreover, the results indicate specific needs of high-growth enterprises that, in comparison with other firms, appear less sensitive about financial constraints, more interested in the availability of skilled labour and benefiting more from cooperative strategies.JRC.I.1-Modelling, Indicators and Impact Evaluatio

JRC Statistical Audit of the 2020 Gender Equality Index

The 2020 Gender Equality Index (GEI) ranks the 27 EU member states and the UK on 31 performance indicators measuring gender equalities in the six domains of work, money, knowledge, time, power, health and additionally the domain of violence, as well as intersecting inequalities. By providing relevant statistics, data and measures, all essential components for evidence-based policymaking and successful gender mainstreaming, it supports the assessment of policy outcomes on women and men. Since 2013 the Gender Equality Index is released biannually by the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) while from 2019 and on, the releases will be on annual basis. The European Commission’s Competence Centre on Composite Indicators and Scoreboards (COIN) at the Joint Research Centre (JRC) was invited by the European Institute for Gender Equality to audit the 2020 edition of the GEI. The statistical audit presented herein aims to contribute to ensuring the transparency of the GEI methodology and the reliability of the results. The report touches upon data quality issues, the conceptual and statistical coherence of the framework and the impact of modelling assumptions on the results. The analysis suggests that meaningful inferences can be drawn from the Gender Equality Index. It confirms that the 2020 GEI meets the quality standards for statistical soundness and acknowledges it as a reliable composite indicator to measure gender equality in the European Union.JRC.I.1-Monitoring, Indicators & Impact Evaluatio

The JRC Statistical Audit of the Restrictiveness Index for seven regulated professions

The European Commission highlights the role of regulation in creating obstacles to the functioning of the single market and holding back the potential for growth and job creation in the EU economies. Removing such barriers opens up opportunities and has a positive impact on the productivity and competitiveness of the EU economy. In this context, the Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs has developed the Restrictiveness Index, which aims to measure the intensity of the national regulations in the 28 Member States of the European Union with regard to entering and exercising seven professions: accountant, architect, civil engineer, lawyer, patent agent, real estate agent and tourist guide. In so doing, it raises some conceptual and practical challenges, which are discussed in the Restrictiveness Index report. The goal of this Joint Research Centre audit report is to assess the statistical coherence of the Restrictiveness Index and the impact of its modelling assumptions. These analyses lead to the following key findings. First, the statistical coherence of the Restrictiveness Index is confirmed. The more the conceptual framework embraces the statistical structure, the greater the reliability of the indicator will be. In our case, different degrees of alignment are identified between the conceptual framework and the statistical framework, with the greatest alignment for the profession of real estate agent, and the least alignment for the profession of lawyer. Second, the Restrictiveness Index’s country rankings and scores are relatively robust to methodological assumptions. Hence, it is not sensitive to perturbations in the weights and in the aggregation formula. Third, exclusive or shared reserved activities, educational requirements and title protection have high impacts on the Restrictiveness Index. Fourth, quantitative restrictions seem to be the least restricted indicator given that it provides the least information in terms of regulation intensity. In addition, it records the least influence on the indicator framework and the weakest association with it. Future editions of the Restrictiveness Index should carefully reconsider the profession of lawyer, because the restrictions related to compulsory registration in professional bodies are negatively associated with the overall index. This shows that it moves in the opposite direction within the conceptual and statistical framework.JRC.I.1-Modelling, Indicators and Impact Evaluatio

DNA Mutations via Chern-Simons Currents

We test the validity of a possible schematization of DNA structure and dynamics based on the Chern-Simons theory, that is a topological field theory mostly considered in the context of effective gravity theories. By means of the expectation value of the Wilson Loop, derived from this analogue gravity approach, we find the point-like curvature of genomic strings in KRAS human gene and COVID-19 sequences, correlating this curvature with the genetic mutations. The point-like curvature profile, obtained by means of the Chern-Simons currents, can be used to infer the position of the given mutations within the genetic string. Generally, mutations take place in the highest Chern-Simons current gradient locations and subsequent mutated sequences appear to have a smoother curvature than the initial ones, in agreement with a free energy minimization argument

Artificial Intelligence – impact on total factor productivity, e-commerce & fintech

Scholars, and not only, believe that Artificial Intelligence will be among the main sources of innovation in the years to come. A relevant issue involves understanding the impact that these technologies have on productivity. Indeed, the stylized facts related to past introductions of disruptive innovations such as the industrial revolution and the mechanization of agriculture, suggest that the automation of existing tasks produced extraordinary increases in productivity (Acemoglu & Restrepo, 2019). In order to assess the growth potential of this new wave of innovation, we study the impact of AI technologies on total factor productivity, TFP, We analyse improvements in productivity that originate from firms that have patented AI technologies, In particular, we exploit a novel data set on AI patents at the firm level to analyze whether the extent with which firms develop AI technologies positively affects productivity and wages. Also, we draw attention to e-commerce and fintech firms which are more extensively adopting AI.JRC.I.1-Monitoring, Indicators & Impact Evaluatio