Annamaria Inzelt

This book offers a guideline for "Technology Audit" exercises for the transforming innovation systems of Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs). Further­ more, the book presents the results of an exemplary application of this guideline in the field of biotechnology in Hungary. The authors - a group of innovation re­ searchers of the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research (lSI), Germany, and of the Innovation Research Centre (IKU), Hungary - provide a sound concept for the identification of technological strengths and weaknesses of the CEECs' industrially oriented research systems as a basis for the design of advanced innovation policies. After the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) had proposed a "Technology Audit" of Hungary in 1993, a pilot audit was carried out under their auspices. In parallel, the German Federal Ministry of Education, Sci­ ence, Research and Technology (BMFT) put forward the idea of developing the audit concept further in order to make it applicable also in other Central and Eastern European Countries. They asked lSI to utilise the running OECD audits as a learn­ ing source and to work out a comprehensive audit approach.