2. Introduction

The European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS) has been published annually since 2001 to track and benchmark the relative innovation performance of EU27 Member States. From the EIS 2008 onwards the methodology has been revised and the number of dimensions increased to 7 and grouped into 3 main blocks covering enablers, firm activities and outputs (Figure 1). These dimensions bring together a set of related indicators to give a balanced assessment of the innovation performance in that dimension. The blocks and dimensions have been designed to accommodate the diversity of different innovation processes and models that occur in different national contexts.

Figure 1: Dimensions of Innovation Performance captured in the EIS

  • ENABLERS captures the main drivers of innovation that are external to the firm as:
    • Human resources – measures the availability of high-skilled and educated people.
    • Finance and support – measures the availability of finance for innovation projects and the support of governments for innovation activities.

  • FIRM ACTIVITIES captures innovation efforts that firms undertake recognising the fundamental importance of firms’ activities in the innovation process:
    • Firm investments – covers a range of different investments firms make in order to generate innovations.
    • Linkages & entrepreneurship – captures entrepreneurial efforts and collaboration efforts among innovating firms and also with the public sector.
    • Throughputs – captures the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) generated as a throughput in the innovation process and Technology Balance of Payments flows.

  • OUTPUTS captures the outputs of firm activities as:
    • Innovators – measures the number of firms that have introduced innovations onto the market or within their organisations, covering technological and non-technological innovations.
    • Economic effects – captures the economic success of innovation in employment, exports and sales due to innovation activities.

 

The above described dimensions form the core of national innovation performance. In addition, there are wider socio-economic factors that influence innovation, such as the role of governments, markets, social factors and the demand and acceptance of innovation. These factors and their relationship with innovation performance have been explored in various EIS thematic papers. The indicators which are included in each of the dimensions are listed in Table 1 and full definitions are available in Annex C [1].

The EIS 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, as indicated in Table 1 [2], to note that the data relates to actual performance in 2006, 2007 and 2008. As a consequence the 2009 EIS does not capture the most recent changes in innovation performance, or the impact of policies introduced in recent years which may take some time to impact on innovation performance. Nor does it capture the impact of the financial crisis on innovation performance.

 

Table 1: Indicators for the EIS 2008-2010

 

EIS dimension / indicator

Data source (reference year) [3]

ENABLERS

 

 

Human resources

 

1.1.1

S&E and SSH graduates per 1000 population aged 20-29 (first stage of tertiary education)

Eurostat (2007)

1.1.2

S&E and SSH doctorate graduates per 1000 population aged 25-34 (second stage of tertiary education)

Eurostat (2007)

1.1.3

Population with tertiary education per 100 population aged 25-64

Eurostat (2008)

1.1.4

Participation in life-long learning per 100 population aged 25-64

Eurostat (2008)

1.1.5

Youth education attainment level

Eurostat (2008)

 

Finance and support

 

1.2.1

Public R&D expenditures (% of GDP)

Eurostat (2008)

1.2.2

Venture capital (% of GDP)

EVCA / Eurostat (2008)

1.2.3

Private credit (relative to GDP)

IMF (2008)

1.2.4

Broadband access by firms (% of firms)

Eurostat (2008)

FIRM ACTIVITIES

 

 

Firm investments

 

2.1.1

Business R&D expenditures (% of GDP)

Eurostat (2008)

2.1.2

IT expenditures (% of GDP)

EITO / Eurostat (2006)

2.1.3

Non-R&D innovation expenditures (% of turnover)

Eurostat (2006)

 

Linkages & entrepreneurship

 

2.2.1

SMEs innovating in-house (% of SMEs)

Eurostat (2006)

2.2.2

Innovative SMEs collaborating with others (% of SMEs)

Eurostat (2006)

2.2.3

Firm renewal (SME entries plus exits) (% of SMEs)

Eurostat (2005)

2.2.4

Public-private co-publications per million population

Thomson Reuters / CWTS (2007)

 

Throughputs

 

2.3.1

EPO patents per million population

Eurostat (2006)

2.3.2

Community trademarks per million population

OHIM / Eurostat (2008)

2.3.3

Community designs per million population

OHIM / Eurostat (2008)

2.3.4

Technology Balance of Payments flows (% of GDP)

World Bank (2008)

OUTPUTS

 

 

Innovators

 

3.1.1

SMEs introducing product or process innovations (% of SMEs)

Eurostat (2006)

3.1.2

SMEs introducing marketing or organisational innovations (% of SMEs)

Eurostat (2006)

3.1.3

Resource efficiency innovators, calculated as the average of:

 

 
  • Share of innovators where innovation has significantly reduced labour costs (% of firms)

Eurostat (2006)

 
  • Share of innovators where innovation has significantly reduced the use of materials and energy (% of firms)

Eurostat (2006)

 

Economic effects

 

3.2.1

Employment in medium-high & high-tech manufacturing (% of workforce)

Eurostat (2008)

3.2.2

Employment in knowledge-intensive services (% of workforce)

Eurostat (2008)

3.2.3

Medium and high-tech manufacturing exports (% of total exports)

UN (2008)

3.2.4

Knowledge-intensive services exports (% of total services exports)

UN / Eurostat (2007)

3.2.5

New-to-market sales (% of turnover)

Eurostat (2006)

3.2.6

New-to-firm sales (% of turnover)

Eurostat (2006)

 

[1] The rationale for including these dimensions and indicators is discussed in the 2008 Methodology Report.

[2] Of the 29 indicators, 12 indicators capture in performance in 2008, 6 indicators capture performance in 2007, 10 indicators capture performance in 2006 and 1 indicator captures performance in 2005.

[3] Exceptions to the reference years are shown in Annex C. For some indicators weighted averages have been used, more details are available in Annex C.