Comparing R&D activity into a company could also take into account more elaborate indicators like: percentage of added value from total sales, R&D expenditure from total company expenditure, number of R&D employees from total employees etc. Anyway, there is not a determined function, which could be generalized for all industries. The third level of innovation, related with the entire environment where innovation produce effects could be measured with various indicators. The EU used for comparison between EU countries a set of indicators which comprise three categories, with eight dimensions and 25 indicators [16]:
Enablers, divided in: human resources, research systems results and finance and support, Firm activities, with subcategories: firm investments, link ages & entrepreneurship and intellectual assets Outputs, regarding innovators and economic effects.