Prevalence of User Innovation in the EU: An analysis based on the Innobarometer Surveys of 2007 and 2009, INNO-Metrics Thematic Paper, Brussels, EU

Users play an important part in innovation processes and outputs. Both firms and consumers have needs that must be understood for a product to stand any chance of success. They also possess expertise that is potentially valuable for product development. Users may even modify existing products or develop new ones in response to their own needs, possibly anticipating future market demand in the process. However, despite a large body of literature exploring these and other aspects of user involvement in innovation, we still know relatively little about the scale and importance of these activities. This study is the first to explore user innovation amongst a large sample of European firms engaged in innovative activities. It provides new insights into the ways in which European firms innovate and how they engage with their user populations. The report draws on the results of the 2007 and the 2009 Innobarometer surveys to systematically address two inter-related sets of questions: -How prevalent is user innovation amongst a large sample of innovating firms in the EU? -How are firms engaged in user innovation different from the whole population of innovating firms? One of the major contributions of this study is that it explores three different forms of user innovation: User Process Innovation, User Product Innovation, and User Involvers. Much of the conventional literature on firm-level user innovation has focused on process innovations that arise when firms modify existing technologies or create new technologies for their own use. In this study two other categories of firms are included: those that innovate by improving already existing products and those that involve users in their innovative activities.