So far, community innovation surveys were conducted in 1993, 1997, 2001, 2005, 2007, 2009, 2011 and 2013. In 2015, the 9th wave of the European survey has been launched.

The ZEW also sits on international working groups within the framework of the OECD and Eurostat. These working groups have the task of further developing the methodology of innovation surveys and providing a definition for innovation activities (the "Oslo Manual"). In 2005 a new version of the OSLO Manual wascompiled under the auspices of the OECD's NESTI expert group. Experiences of the past years with innovation surveys provided the background to the new edition. The ZEW team was actively involved in the process of putting together the new handbook, which can be obtained as pdf from here.

Selected results of the CIS surveys conducted in 2005, 2007, 2009, 2011 and 2013 for Germany are available as xls form here.

The 2007 survey ("CIS2006") implemented for the first time the new concepts of organisational and marketing innovation adopted by the 2005 revision of the Oslo Manual. In a separate project, ZEW analysed the consequences of the widening of the innovation concept. More information can be found here.