Creating a micro-level innovation dataset in Nigeria

Post date: Jun 30, 2015 2:47:15 PM

Innovation is widely accepted as an important ingredient for growth and development, particularly coming from small and medium-sized enterprises. However, the conditions under which such enterprises in developing countries innovate and constraints they face are scarcely understood due to poor data collection. In sub-Saharan Africa, this dearth of data is especially pronounced, as local data collection agencies routinely gather data but fail to make it public or standardized. The aim of this project is to create a harmonized, standard data set based on two industrial innovation surveys carried out in 2007 and 2011 in Nigeria. Read more about the project here. The final output can be downloaded via the link below or here. This may be updated periodically with fresh data or bug fixes. A research note based on the data is available via the link below or here.

The data preparation was funded by the Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office under its PEDL initiative, a joint initiative with the Centre for Economic Policy Research.

Apart from my own research, the data has now been used in many research articles, examples here, here, here, here and here. This goes to show the high demand for such data. Another round of the Nigerian Innovation Survey has been completed recently and the data will be made available soon.