Methodology

In a nutshell, the overall scores for each country are derived from the simple average of all the category scores, and the category scores are the simple average of the individual metric scores.

The seven categories are Productivity, Intellectual Property Protection, Enterprise Support, Intensity, Education/Workforce and Foundations, Policy and Stability. Each is comprised of a number of metrics.

The metric scores are calculated by measuring the performance of each country and assigning the highest-ranked country a '10' and the lowest-ranked country a '0'. These metric scores are shown at the bottom of each Category page, and the overall category score is the simple average of the metrics. For countries for which no data is available for a metric, then that metric is excluded from the average — there is no penalty for missing data.

The category scores are averaged to produce an overall score for each country, and that overall score is normalized to a range from 0-100. As with the metric scores, when no data is available for a given category it is excluded from the average. So, there is no penalty for missing data.

The use of simple averages, as opposed to weighed averages, gives each metric and each category equal weighting. This means that the scorecard gives equal importance to intellectual property strength, to business friendly environment, etc.

The rationale for this unweighted average is for transparency. If a weighting were applied, it would imply that an appropriate algorithm for weighing the factors exists—and it doesn't. Further, using a neutral weighting makes it possible for you to apply your own weighting. For example, if you consider Enterprise Support to be of primary importance, then the unweighted scorecard makes it easy for you to evaluate the final scores in your own context.

Data sources:

Category	Metric	Source
Productivity	Publicly-traded company revenues	Morrison, C., Lahteenmaki, R., Public biotech 2014—the numbers. Nature Biotechnology 33 (703-709), and company disclosures
	Number of publicly-traded companies	Morrison, C., Lahteenmaki, R., Public biotech 2014—the numbers. Nature Biotechnology 33 (703-709), and company disclosures
IP Protection	Patent strength	Park, W.G., International patent protection: 1960–2005, Res Policy (2008) 37:4 (761-766)
	Perceived IP protection	World Economic Forum
Intensity	Publicly-traded companies / capita	Morrison, C., Lahteenmaki, R., Public biotech 2014—the numbers. Nature Biotechnology 33 (703-709), company disclosures
	Publicly-traded company employees / capita	Morrison, C., Lahteenmaki, R., Public biotech 2014—the numbers. Nature Biotechnology 33 (703-709), and company disclosures
	Publicly-traded company revenues / GDP	Morrison, C., Lahteenmaki, R., Public biotech 2014—the numbers. Nature Biotechnology 33 (703-709), and company disclosures
	Biotechnology patents / total patents	OECD
	Value added of knowledge-and technology-intensive industries	National Science Foundation
	Business expenditures on biotechnology R&D	OECD
Enterprise Support	Business friendly environment	The World Bank
	Biotechnology venture capital	OECD
	VC availability	World Economic Forum
	Capital availability	Milken Capital Access Index
Education and Workforce	Post-secondary science graduates / capita	UNESCO
	PhD graduates in life sciences / capita	OECD
	R&D personnel / employment	UNESCO
	Talent retention	National Science Foundation
	Brain gain	UNESCO
Foundations	Business expenditures on R&D (% of GDP)	OECD
	Gross domestic expenditure on R&D (% of GDP)	UNESCO
	Infrastructure quality	World Economic Forum
	Entrepreneurship and opportunity	Legatum Prosperity Index
Policy and Stability	Political stability and absence of violence/terrorism	World Bank Group
	Government effectiveness	World Bank Group
	Regulatory quality	World Bank Group
	Rule of law	World Bank Group