Austrian Research and Technology Report 2020

Fig. 1-13: Patent intensity (triadic patents) by country of origin, standardised by number of R&D employees, 
2013 and 2017*
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
NL
D
SW
E
DEU
FIN
FR
A
AU
T
DN
K
BE
L
GBR
LU
X
IR
L*
*
Ø E
U-2
8
ITA
ES
P
HU
N
ES
T
SV
N
PRT
CZ
E
POL
SV
K
GRC
LV
A
RO
U
LT
U
CH
E
CA
N*
*
CH
N
ZA
F*
*
EU Member States
Reference countries
Pa
te
nt
s p
er 1
,0
00 R
&D e
m
pl
oy
ee
s
2013
2017
* Country data not available for the reference years: BGR, CYP, HRV, MLT, USA, AUS, BRA.
** Last available data selected (2016).
Source: OECD (2019b). Graphic: iit.

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34
Austrian Research and Technology Report 2020
Austria, where patent applications dropped from 
5.73 per 1,000 R&D employees in 2013 to 4.87 in 
2017. As in 2013, Austria was placed sixth out of the 
EU-28 in 2017, although it was only just behind 
France (5.32) and Finland (5.59). Leading the EU field 
were the Netherlands (8.81) and Sweden (7.51). At 
14.1 patent applications per 1,000 R&D employees, 
Switzerland boasts the highest figure amongst the 
countries covered here. 
Austria’s international position in terms of 
scientific publications 
Another key output indicator for a country’s scientific 
performance is the number of scientific and techno-
logical publications it generates. This report only 
considers the citable publications (e.g. scientific 
studies, reviews, books and articles) produced in the 
26 As scientific publications are not just written by people in an R&D role, the total population of the country in question is used to 
standardise the figures.
27 See Scimago Journal & Country Rank (2019).
various countries, expressed in relation to population 
size.
26
This quantitative evaluation of scholarly re-
search is based on the assumption that research re-
sults only become relevant when they are reported 
to the outside world and can be cited. 
This bibliometric analysis of the data is under-
pinned by the SCImago publication database.
27
Fig. 
1-14 shows citable published articles for 2018, stan-
dardised by country population. Austria (2.61) is 
tenth out of the EU-28, putting it in a strong midfield 
position. It is interesting to note that the countries 
responsible for the most publications – the USA 
(1.74) and China (0.40) – lag well behind Austria’s 
technological and scientific output in their popula-
tion-weighted publication output as presented here. 
Denmark is the leader in the EU, publishing 4.43 
scientific articles per 1,000 inhabitants.