Brussels, 22/02/2007 (Agence Europe) - For the fourth consecutive year, the innovation gap between the US and the EU has narrowed. The Nordic countries and Switzerland continue to be the innovation leaders worldwide, while many of the new member states are steadily catching up with the EU average. These are some of the main findings of the European Innovation Scoreboard 2006 published by the European Commission on 22 February. The report presents a comparative analysis of the innovation performance of European countries, the US and Japan. Eurostat took the opportunity provided by this publication to reveal the results of a study showing that, in the EU27 between 2002 and 2004, 42% of enterprises from industry and services developed some form of innovation activity.
As in previous editions of the European Innovation Scoreboard, national performances differ. The authors grouped the countries into four categories based on their overall innovation score and their recent historical trend. These categories are: - innovation leaders: Sweden, Switzerland, Finland, Denmark, Germany and Japan; - innovation followers: UK, Iceland, France, Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Ireland and the US; - catching-up countries: Slovenia, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Portugal, Poland, Latvia, Greece, Bulgaria, Cyprus and Romania; - and trailing countries: Estonia, Spain, Italy, Malta, Hungary, Croatia and Slovakia. Luxembourg, Norway and Turkey would not fit into any of the above categories.
The European Innovation Scoreboard measures the innovation performance of a country's economy based on a wide range of indicators, from education to expenditure in information and communication technologies, investment in R&D or number of patents. Countries with a more homogenous behaviour in all aspects of innovation tend to achieve higher overall scores. Practically all EU member states excel in one or another dimension of innovation, but only a few of them (the innovation leaders) achieve an overall performance that grants world innovation leadership.
One of the main conclusions of the report is that there is a process of convergence taking place in the innovation performance of member states, that is, catching-up countries are closing the gap with the EU average and both country groups of innovation leaders and followers are experiencing a relative decline in their innovation lead. While the innovation gap with the US has been decreasing steadily for the last four years, it still exists. The Commission explains this by the “superior US performance in early-stage venture capital availability, share of population with tertiary education and number of US patents”. The gap between the EU and Japan is also decreasing and the factors explaining the remaining gap are similar, notes the Commission.
The Eurostat study reveals that 42% of enterprises in the EU27 carried out innovative activities over the 2002-2004 period. In other terms, this proportion of businesses have either developed products that can be described as “new” or “considerably improved” or have implemented production technology, distribution methods or activities that are either new or considerably improved. Among the EU27 member states, the highest proportion of companies with innovation activity during the period considered were recorded in Germany (65% of businesses), Austria (53%), Denmark, Ireland and Luxembourg (52% each), Belgium (51%) and Sweden (50%). The lowest rates were noted in Bulgaria (16%), Latvia (18%), Romania (20%) and Hungary and Malta (21% each).
In 2002-2004, innovation cooperation stood at 26% of all innovative enterprises in the EU27. Highest levels of cooperation were found in Lithuania (56% of all innovative companies), Slovenia (47%) and Finland (44%), and the lowest was in Italy (13%) and Germany (16%). In the EU27, suppliers (with which 17% of all innovative companies worked) and clients (14%) were the most common partners. Suppliers were the most frequent partners in almost all member states, with cooperation levels being the highest in Lithuania (45% of innovative companies) and the lowest in Germany, Italy and Austria (7% each). Cooperation with clients on innovative activities ranged from between 4% in Spain and Cyprus to 41% in Finland. Innovative companies of the EU27 worked together much less often with universities and other higher education establishments (9%) or government and public research institutes (6%). Public-private cooperation on innovation mainly occurred in Finland, Slovenia, Slovakia, Latvia and Lithuania but was far less frequent in Italy, Malta, Romania and Cyprus. The complete Commission report may be consulted at: http: //http://www.proinno-europe.eu/inn-metrics.html. (ol)