Cyprus among EU27 closing innovation gap

For the fourth consecutive year, the innovation gap between the US and the EU has decreased with Cyprus among EU27 countries contributing to the positive move. 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 today. The report presents a comparative analysis of the innovation performance of European countries, the US and Japan.

Commissioned by the Directorate-General for Enterprise and Industry of the European Commission, the European Innovation Scoreboard is prepared by the Maastricht Economic Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT) assisted by the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission. 

As in previous editions of the European Innovation Scoreboard, national performances differ. Based on their overall innovation score and their recent historical trend, the authors grouped the countries in four categories:

Innovation leaders: Sweden, Switzerland, Finland, Denmark, Germany and Japan

Innovation followers: UK, Iceland, France, Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Ireland, US

Catching-up countries: Slovenia, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Portugal, Poland, Latvia, Greece, Bulgaria, Cyprus and Romania

Trailing countries: Estonia, Spain, Italy, Malta, Hungary, Croatia and Slovakia

Luxembourg, Norway and Turkey would not fit in any of these categories.

Innovation 2002-04

In the EU27 42% of enterprises from industry and services reported some form of innovation activity between 2002 and 2004. Among the EU27 Member States the highest proportion of companies with innovation activity in this period was recorded in Germany (65% of enterprises), followed by Austria (53%), Denmark, Ireland and Luxembourg (52% each), Belgium (51%) and Sweden (50%). The lowest rates were observed in Bulgaria (16%), Latvia (18%), Romania (20%), Hungary and Malta (both 21%).

This information, which comes from the fourth Community Innovation Survey, covering the EU27 Member States, Norway and Iceland, is released by Eurostat, the Statistical Office of the European Communities on the occasion of the launch by the European Commission of the European Innovation Scoreboard 2006 (EIS). The EIS evaluates and compares the innovation performance of the EU Member States. It was first devised in the year 2000, as a result of the adoption of the Lisbon strategy. The EIS 2006 is mainly based on data from Eurostat, including those coming from the fourth Community Innovation Survey.

Innovation co-operation stood at 26% of all innovative enterprises in the EU27 in 2002-2004. The highest levels of innovation co-operation were found in Lithuania (56% of all innovative enterprises), Slovenia (47%) and Finland (44%), and the lowest levels in Italy (13%) and Germany (16%).

In the EU27, the most common co-operation partners were suppliers (17% of all innovative enterprises worked with them) and customers (14%). Suppliers were the most frequent partners in nearly all Member States, with the highest levels found in Lithuania (45%) and the lowest in Germany, Italy and Austria (7% each). Co-operation with customers in innovation activities ranged from 4% in Spain and Cyprus to 41% in Finland. Innovative enterprises in the EU27 worked together much less often with universities and other higher education institutes (9%) or government and public research institutes (6%). Private-public co-operation on innovation was most frequent in Finland, Slovenia, Slovakia, Latvia and Lithuania, while it was least common in Italy, Malta, Romania and Cyprus.