The author analyses indicators for science and technology, which are receiving a decisive support from institutions in charge of planning and implementing sector policies, due to new economic trends: the growth of knowledge contents in the value composition of goods and services, and the increase of research costs and the reduction of public resources to finance it, which introduce the need of performance evaluation in public institutions. Making use of S&T indicators developed by FAPESP, this paper discusses the great theoretical difficulty in establishing suitable indicators and how to collect them, as well as the practical problems in gathering a reliable set of variables that makes possible the definition and implementation of scientific and technological policy.
Science and technonoly indicators; Science and technology policy
