Bulgaria

The EIS country pages provide for each of the European countries covered by the EIS 2007 a performance chart showing performance by indicator relative to the EU mean, a radar graph showing the innovation performance for each of the innovation dimensions relative to the country’s SII performance and the data tables showing, where available, time series data for the SII, the dimensions and each of the indicators.

More information is available on each country is available in the EIS report and its thematic papers which are available on the INNO Metrics website). The EIS 2007 thematic papers provide information on services innovation, the impact of differences in socio-economic conditions on innovation performance, innovation efficiency and non-R&D based innovation.

Bulgaria is included in the group of "catching-up countries", with an overall innovation performance that is below the EU average. Other EU countries in this group which have a similar level of performance are Malta, Lithuania, Hungary, Greece, Slovakia, Poland, Latvia and Romania. Its innovation performance over the last five years has increased relative to the EU average and could converge to the EU average in around 20 years if current trends continue.

Bulgaria performs relatively well on the Innovation Drivers dimension, where it is above the EU average on the indicator of youth education attainment level. It has a relatively weak performance in the Intellectual Property dimension.  Bulgaria is also below the EU average in terms of its innovation efficiency in transforming innovation inputs into Applications and Intellectual Property outputs. Bulgaria has a high level of non-R&D innovators (companies that innovate without conducting formal R&D activities).