Economic footprint of European RTOs (EARTO)

For EARTO, the European Association of Research and Technology Organisations, IDEA Consult has assessed the economic footprint of its 9 largest members in the period 2013-2014 and two years later also for 2015-2016.

We have measured the impact of their activities in terms of turnover, value added and employment. These three dimensions include each time a direct, indirect (at suppliers upwards in the value chain) and induced effect (by consumption through the direct and indirect employment). In the second study also downstream effects were included in this update of the economic footprint. Based on these effects we have calculated the parafiscal return from these RTOs back to the government and have compared it to the government grants in order to calculate the leverage effect of these subsidies.

Next to the economic effects of their activities, we have also analysed the impact of the technological developments through contract research and cooperation projects on the one hand and the creation of spinoffs on the other. For the second period, the indicator base was extended with indicators on the average life expectancy and survival rates of the spin-offs, as well as the outflow of employees to industry as an indicator of knowledge and know-how transfer to industry.

The studies are available at:

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