Analysis of Estonian startups in an international context

Abstract

As more and more countries reach the stage of development where economic growth is rooted in innovation, the question of assessing the quality and development of national innovation systems becomes increasingly more important. In this thesis, the author analyzes the startup ecosystem of a small Northern European country, Estonia. Firstly, a context is laid out in the form of a body of literature relating to innovation systems and their measurement, including bibliometry and co-author graphs. With this background in mind, established metrics as well as an analysis of other available sources of data are used to assess the state of innovation in Estonia. The results are compared to the same metrics for other countries and to predictions made in previous researches. As a result to this analysis, interesting discrepancies emerge between what major research organizations have said about the Estonian innovation economy, the secondary indicators which indirectly reflect the Estonian startup ecosystem and the conclusion of this thesis. Lastly, a modified approach for assessing innovation ecosystems of small open economies is developed and used to make tentative policy recommendations.