The project was aimed at understanding the contributions of intangible investments to innovation, competitiveness, growth and productivity in Europe. Intangible investments are, with a few exceptions, either not measured, or treated as an intermediate input into production. This means that they are assumed to produce no durable assets for firms or economies. Some knowledge investment is counted as such in the key economic measures such as GDP (e.g. software). However, R&D and other knowledge investment (like investment in human capital via training, investment in reputation capital, investment in organisational capital etc) are all treated as day-to-day expenses, not investment. Thus, under current conventions, investment and GDP in an economy whose businesses spend €1 more on almost all knowledge investment is the same as an economy whose businesses turn up their air-conditioning.
The researchers working on the project have collected data on a wide range of intangible investments and incorporated these into economic performance measures in order to improve our understanding of knowledge-driven economies and firms.
COINVEST was a collaborative project involving seven European research organizations (in Belgium, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Portugal, Sweden, and the UK). The project is supported by funding from the European Commission under its Seventh Framework Programme.
