Innovation, researcher and creativity: A complex indicator for territorial evaluation capacity

Abstract

Innovation, research, and creativity are crucial elements to guarantee countries' competitiveness and promote sustainable economic and social progress. The evolution of these elements influences and guides the strategic choices of policymakers to develop potential improvements. Measures of economic and social well-being are widely studied in the literature as essential tools for understanding and promoting more equitable, sustainable and inclusive social and economic progress; they provide a more complete and holistic view of people's well-being, enabling more informed policies and decisions that meet a country's needs.Investments in scientific research and innovation, the human capital available for knowledge economy processes and the diffusion of Information and Communication Technologies are fundamental elements of social well-being and economic development. The literature highlights the need for indicators that analyze the efficiency levels of innovation, research and creativity activities to guide policies that promote better resource use. In light of this, the study aims to formulate a composite index that summarizes the "Innovation, research and creativity" dimension of the Equitable and Sustainable Wellbeing (BES) Report. The analysis focuses on Italy and provides a detailed measure of the situation in research, creativity, and innovation, which are indirect determinants of well-being but fundamental to social and economic progress. The authors propose an index for classifying Italian Regions by utilizing indicators from the BES and the Agenda 2030 and employing hierarchical clustering analysis associated with an algorithm based on the P2 distance method.From a broader perspective, the work provides a robust tool that combines various measures into a single value. This offers a more comprehensive view of a complex situation and allows for the identification of general trends or changes over time. Furthermore, this enables a more targeted assessment of goal achievement than analysing isolated individual variables.The results show the goodness and robustness of the proposed index. Therefore, the proposed index is a valuable tool capable of providing a comprehensive view of the situation, identifying trends, regional or national patterns, and information essential for governments to formulate strategies.