'Statistics on high-tech industry and knowledge-intensive services' (sometimes referred to as simply 'high-tech statistics' ) comprise economic, employment and science, technology and innovation (STI) data describing manufacturing and services industries or products traded broken down by technological intensity. The domain uses various other domains and sources of Eurostat's official statistics (CIS, COMEXT, HRST, LFS, PATENT, R&D and SBS) and its coverage is therefore dependent on these other primary sources. Two main approaches are used in the domain to identify technology-intensity: the sectoral approach and the product approach. A third approach is used for data on high-tech and biotechnology patents aggregated on the basis of the International Patent Classification (IPC) 8th edition (see summary table in Annex 1 for which approach is used by each type of data).

The sectoral approach: The sectoral approach is an aggregation of the manufacturing industries according to technological intensity (R&D expenditure/value added) and based on the Statistical classification of economic activities in the European Community (NACE) at 2-digit level. The level of R&D intensity served as a criterion of classification of economic sectors into high-technology, medium high-technology, medium low-technology and low-technology industries.