The Community Innovation Survey (CIS) is a survey of innovation activity in enterprises. The harmonised survey is designed to provide information on the innovativeness of sectors by type of enterprises, on the different types of innovation and on various aspects of the development of an innovation, such as the objectives, the sources of information, the public funding or the expenditures.

The CIS provides statistics broke down by countries, type of innovators, economic activities and size classes. The survey is currently carried out every two years across the EU Member States, some EFTA countries and EU candidate countries.

In order to ensure comparability across countries, Eurostat, in close cooperation with the countries, has developed a standard core questionnaire starting with the CIS3 data collection, along with an accompanying set of definitions and methodological recommendations. The concepts and underlying methodology of the CIS are also based on the Oslo Manual — second edition of 1997 and third edition of 2005 ( see link at the bottom of the page ).

Up to CIS 2010, CIS results were collected under Commission Regulation (EC) No 1450/2004 . A new Regulation will apply from CIS 2012 ( EC No 995/2012 ).

The data presented in these tables refer to enterprises with ‘10 employees or more’ active in the sectors to be covered under the Regulation (cf. NACE CORE). Further activities may be covered on a voluntary basis.