*3.1. Online Survey*

In order to structure the online survey questionnaire, some indicators of the 2018 Global Innovation Index were selected in order to measure Florianópolis' performance. The Global Innovation Index aims to capture the multidimensional facets of innovation by providing a rich database of detailed metrics for 126 national economies, which represent 90.8% of the world's population and 96.3% of the global gross domestic product (GDP). A wide range of high-, medium-, and low-income countries use the index as a tool for understanding, benchmarking, and improving their innovation performances [36]. Taking advantage of the Global Innovation Index framework, a questionnaire was set up for experts from the State of Santa Catarina to evaluate the performance of Florianópolis in relation to Brazil's ranking, according to main indicators clustered under three categories, as presented in Table 1.


**Table 1.** Global Innovation Index indicators used in the design of the questionnaire (source, authors).

The questionnaire also used Brazil's assessment in comparison with the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and Latin American countries as guiding benchmarks. The respondents were asked to rate Florianópolis' innovation performance considering the national performance, defining it using a 7-scale Likert system. For each category, respondents were also asked to state the main reasons for their rating, as well as what could be done to improve the performance in that specific area.

The first version of the questionnaire included a total of 55 questions, 22 questions sought quantitative responses and the remaining 33 questions sought qualitative responses. A pilot version of the questionnaire was placed into a Google Form and sent to 10 people. After considering the feedback received, the questionnaire was shortened to 35 questions, 22 of them quantitative and 13 qualitative.

The final version of the questionnaire was sent by e-mail to 100 selected experts, i.e., innovation and knowledge-based development specialists belonging to the following four sectors: public, private, academic, and not-for-profit. The survey was left open for 15 days and a strong follow-up was made by phone and WhatsApp to receive as many responses as possible. In total, 55 valid responses were received (55% response rate). Among these respondents, 17 respondents were from the not-for-profit sector, 16 respondents were from the private sector, 10 respondents were from public sector, and 12 respondents were from the academic sector.

Quantitative responses were analyzed with the google forms' graphic generation tools, whereas the analysis of the open-ended questions was made by a coding system, based on KBUD dimensions. A total of 16 codes were identified, 4 for each dimension (economic development, sociocultural development, spatial development, and institutional development), and highlighted with a different color (Table 2). Each open-ended response was also coded considering the subcodes for each code category. In total, 660 responses were read, coded, and subcoded, accordingly. Additionally, the main issues from the responses were manually identified and added to a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) table for further analysis.



