4.1. Comparison EU-rest of Europe

4. Comparison of EU27 innovation performance with key benchmark countries

This section focuses on a comparison with non-EU Member States, starting with a comparison with other European countries in section 4.1 and with the EU27’s global competitors in section 4.2.

4.1. A comparison with other European countries

Data is available for seven more non-EU European countries to perform a comparison with the Member States (Figure 9). Of these Switzerland belongs to the Innovation leaders, Iceland to the Innovation followers, Croatia, Norway and Serbia to the Moderate innovators and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Turkey to the Modest innovators.

Switzerland is the overall innovation leader, outperforming all Member States. Its growth performance of 1.3% in the lat five years is also above that of the EU27. For Croatia, Serbia and Turkey growth in innovation performance has been between 4.1% and 5.3%, well above that of the EU27 in the same period. For the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia growth performance is also above the EU27 average at 2.3%.

Figure 9: European Countries’ innovation performance

Note: Average performance is measured using a composite indicator building on data for 24 indicators ranging from a lowest possible performance of 0 to a maximum possible performance of 1. Average performance in 2011 reflects performance in 2009/2010 due to a lag in data availability.