Cyprus ranked 17th of 25 in innovation

Still catching up

The fifth edition of the European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS) puts Cyprus a poor 17th out of 25 EU member states in terms of innovation, with three of the new member states ahead of it. According to the report, although the overall ranking of Cyprus is well below the EU average, there are a “few areas of strength”.

Cyprus is above the EU average for tertiary education, percentage of innovative firms that receive public support for innovation, and community trademark applications.

Cyprus is also performing particularly well on innovation among SMEs, according to the report.

It also adds that the vast majority of trends are also above the EU average, with the exception of new S&E graduates.

“Cyprus faces multiple challenges, particularly in terms of knowledge creation, with exceptionally low business R&D and low investment in public R&D. This partly explains the poor performance on innovation applications,” says the report.

The innovation drivers, most of which cover education, are generally closer to the EU average, with the exception of very low rates of new S&E graduates.

Two main challenges

The report says that the two main challenges are to reverse the negative trend and to increase the supply of S&E graduates and “to substantially improve knowledge creation inputs”.

“An increase in business R&D could depend on significant improvements to both the amount of public R&D, currently at 39% of the EU average, and in the quality of public R&D”.

Cyprus is also underperforming on innovation diffusion, as shown by low sales shared for both new-to-firm and new-to-market products.

Mixed results for Europe as a whole

The European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS) reveals mixed results. Sweden, Finland Switzerland, Germany and Denmark are the European innovation leaders, while most of the new Member States are engaged in the catching-up process. “However, their slow pace is unlikely to allow for short-term convergence in Europe” according to the report.

In addition, should trends for the 25 Member States continue, the innovation gap between Europe and the US will not close. T

he EIS includes innovation indicators and trend analyses for all 25 European Union (EU) Member States, as well as for Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey, Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, the United States and Japan.

It assesses five key dimensions of innovation: innovation drivers, knowledge creation, innovation and entrepreneurship, applications, and intellectual property. In addition, it proposes new assessment of innovation efficiency and develops a specific sectoral approach.

“The innovation scoreboard clearly shows that we have to do more for innovation. Boosting innovation is a major pillar in our Partnership for Growth and Jobs. There is clear evidence that more innovative sectors tend to have higher productivity growth rates”, Vice President Günter Verheugen said.

The European Innovation scoreboard highlights significant national differences. The EIS shows an overall picture of innovation performance in Europe. Nordic countries plus Germany are the EU innovation leaders. The new Member States are either in a catching up process or are losing ground. Most of the “old” Member States are in a larger group of average performing countries.

According to their innovation performance, the scoreboard divides the European countries in four groups:

*”Leading countries”: Switzerland, Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Germany

* “Average performance”: France, Luxembourg, Ireland, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Norway, Italy and Iceland.

* “Catching up”: Slovenia, Hungary, Portugal, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Latvia, Greece, Cyprus and Malta.

* “Losing ground”: Estonia, Spain, Bulgaria, Poland, Slovakia, Romania and Turkey.

THE INNOVATION SCOREBOARD

1 Sweden

2 Finland

3 Denmark

4 Germany

5 Austria

6 Belgium