1. Executive Summary

A new depart

This is the first edition of the Innovation Union Scoreboard (IUS). Based on the previous European Innovation Scoreboard, the new tool is meant to help monitor the implementation of the Europe 2020 Innovation Union [1] flagship by providing a comparative assessment of the innovation performance of the EU27 Member States and the relative strengths and weaknesses of their research and innovation systems.

The former list of 29 indicators in the IUS 2009 has been replaced with a new list of 25 indicators [2], which better capture the performance of national research and innovation systems considered as a whole. 19 of the previous 29 indicators have been carried over from last year’s edition, of which 12 indicators have not been changed, 2 indicators have been merged, and 5 indicators have been partly changed by using broader or narrower definitions or different denominators. Taking into account the merging of 2 indicators, 18 indicators of the IUS 2010 are equivalent to those of the EIS 2009 and in addition 7 new indicators have been introduced. Annex E includes a comparative table with the two sets of indicators.

While some of the indicators of the IUS (such as public R&D expenditure) can be more easily influenced by policy intervention than others (such as SMEs innovating in-house), the overall ambition of the Innovation Union Scoreboard is to inform policy discussions at national and EU level, by tracking progress in innovation performance within and outside the EU over time.

The IUS uses the most recent statistics from Eurostat and other internationally recognised sources as available at the time of analysis. International sources have been used wherever possible in order to improve comparability between countries. It is important to note that the data relates to actual performance in 2007 (4 indicators), 2008 (10 indicators) and 2009 (10 indicators). As a consequence the IUS 2010 may not fully capture the possible impact of the economic and financial crisis on innovation performance. Data for indicator 3.1.3 “High-growth innovative enterprises as a percentage of all enterprises” is not sufficiently available yet and therefore only 24 of the 25 indicators have been used in producing the composite innovation indicator.

The IUS 2010 includes innovation indicators and trend analyses for the EU27 Member States, as well as for Croatia, Iceland, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Norway, Serbia, Switzerland and Turkey. It also includes comparisons based on a more reduced set of indicators between the EU27, the US, Japan and the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) countries.

Figure 1: EU Member States’ innovation performance


Note: Average performance is measured using a composite indicator building on data for 24 indicators going from a lowest possible performance of 0 to a maximum possible performance of 1. Average performance in 2010 reflects performance in 2008/2009 due to a lag in data availability.

The performance of Innovation leaders is 20% or more above that of the EU27; of Innovation followers it is less than 20% above but more than 10% below that of the EU27; of Moderate innovators it is less than 10% below but more than 50% below that of the EU27; and for Modest innovators it is below 50% that of the EU27.

Performance groups

The main findings of the IUS 2010 are:
Based on their average innovation performance across 24 indicators, the Member States fall into four performance groups (see thresholds in footnote of Figure 1): Innovation leaders, Innovation followers, Moderate innovators and Modest innovators (see section 3.1):

  • Denmark, Finland, Germany, Sweden all show a performance well above that of the EU27. These countries are the Innovation leaders.
  • Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, France, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Slovenia and the UK all show a performance close to that of the EU27. These countries are the Innovation followers.
  • The performance of Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia and Spain is below that of the EU27. These countries are Moderate innovators.
  • The performance of Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania and Romania is well below that of the EU27. These countries are Modest innovators.

Bulgaria, Estonia, Malta, Romania, Portugal and Slovenia are the growth leaders with an average annual growth rate well above 5%. There continues to be a steady convergence, where less innovative Member States have – on average – been growing faster than the more innovative Member States. This convergence process however seems to be slowing down (see section 3.2 and Annex G). While the Moderate and Modest innovators clearly catch-up to the higher performance level of both the Innovation leaders and Innovation followers, there is no convergence between the different Member States within these 2 lower performance groups. Convergence between the Member States does take place within the Innovation leaders and in particular within the Innovation followers convergence. Between-group convergence thus seems to be stronger than within-group convergence.

What do innovation leaders have in common?

Countries at the top of the ranking for the composite innovation indicator share a number of strengths in their national research and innovation systems. While there is not one single way to reach top innovation performance, most innovation leaders perform very well in Business R&D expenditures and other innovation indicators related to firm activities. All of the innovation leaders have higher than average scores in the Public-private co-publications per million population indicator, what points in the direction of good linkages between the science base and businesses. All European top innovators also excel in the commercialisation of their technological knowledge, as demonstrated by their good performance on the indicator License and patent revenues from abroad.

Furthermore, the overall good performance of the innovation leaders reflects a balanced national research and innovation system. While each country has its own specificities, policy responses should attempt not only to address relative weaknesses in national research and innovation systems, but also to have more balanced performances across all categories of indicators.

International comparison

Of the non-EU European countries, Switzerland is the overall innovation leader outperforming all Member States (section 4.1). Switzerland’s growth performance is also above that of the EU27 and displays an exceptional performance in Intellectual assets and in most of the Economic effects indicators.

The US and Japan are holding their lead over the EU27 (Figure 2) (see section 4.2 for detail). This result is derived from a performance comparison based on a smaller set of 12 of the IUS indicators. The same comparison also shows that the EU27 is holding its lead towards India and Russia, but has been losing part of its lead towards Brazil and China.

A good part of the performance gap in favour of the US can be explained by higher scores in License and patent revenues from abroad, Public-private co-publications, Tertiary education and Business R&D expenditure Trends show that the US performance is improving faster notably as regards New doctorate degrees, License and patent revenues and International co-publications. However, the EU outperforms the US in indicators such as Public R&D expenditure and Knowledge-intensive services exports and its performance is growing faster in 6 indicators, including Public R&D expenditures and PCT patent applications in societal challenges.

The US innovation performance reflects an innovation system characterised by good levels of tertiary education, good linkages between the public science system and the private sector, strong private investment in R&D and a successful commercialisation of technological knowledge.

Less marked, but not decreasing either is the performance lead of Japan over the EU27. Japan’s performance is clearly ahead in Business R&D expenditure and is growing faster than the EU in this field.
Compared to China and Brazil, the EU still has a clear innovation performance lead. Based on a common set of 12 indicators, this lead, however, is declining fast.

Figure 2: EU27 Innovation performance compared to main competitors


Performance is measured as 100*(X/EU)-1) where X refers to the value for the indicator for the country X and EU to the value for the indicator for the EU27. The values in the graphs should be interpreted as the relative performance compared to that of the EU27. E.g. the US in “2010” is performing 49% better than the EU27 and China is “2010” is performing 55% worse than the EU27.

Special theme: Public sector innovation

Public sector innovation is a subject which is attracting increasing policy attention. In preparation for the forthcoming European Public Sector Innovation Scoreboard the 2010 Innobarometer was dedicated to public sector innovation. The survey, conducted among 4000 European organisations in public administration, shows that innovation in public services is widespread (see section 5). Within Europe, two out of three organisations active in public administration introduced a new or significantly improved service in the last 3 years. Innovations improved the work of public administrations and the reported positive effects of innovation included improved user access to information, improved user satisfaction, more targeted services, faster delivery of services, simplified administration and improved working conditions or employee satisfaction.

The survey shows that single most important driver of innovation in the public sector was the introduction of new laws and regulations, with 48% of respondents at the EU level indicating that this was a very important factor. Also, the likelihood of service innovation increased linearly with the size of the institution.

[1] See http://ec.europa.eu/research/innovation-union/pdf/innovation-union-commu...

[2] See Annex C for the definition of indicators