Innovation, the introduction of new products and processes to market or to business operations, is a key determinant for economic growth and sustainability.
Innovation rate drops during the COVID-19 pandemic years
The 2020-to-2022 period was marked by the pandemic, which introduced major challenges and disruptions to the global economy.
According to findings from the 2022 Survey of Innovation and Business Strategy (SIBS), covering the pandemic period (2020 to 2022), the innovation rate (71.9%), which is the proportion of businesses that introduced product or business process innovations, declined compared with the previous reference period (79.8% in 2017-to-2019).
The innovation rate dropped for both product and process innovations. From the 2017-to-2019 period to the 2020-to-2022 period, the product innovation rate declined just over 6 percentage to 46.6%, and the business process innovation rate decreased almost 10 percentage points to 63.0%.
The impact of the pandemic was apparent in the extent to which it influenced the nature of innovation. For product innovators, 5.1% brought new or improved products to market exclusively in response to the pandemic, while 38.8% reported that at least some of their product innovations were in response to the pandemic.
Likewise for business process innovation, 4.8% of businesses reported process innovations as a direct response to the pandemic and 41.4% of businesses declared that some of their business process innovations were related to the pandemic.
Contact information
For more information, or to enquire about the concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact us (toll-free 1-800-263-1136; 514-283-8300; infostats@statcan.gc.ca) or Media Relations (statcan.mediahotline-ligneinfomedias.statcan@statcan.gc.ca).