Innovation Performance

Innovation Performance

European Innovation Scoreboard: Base Findings

Overall innovation performance in Europe

The Summary Innovation Index (SII) gives an “at a glance” overview of aggregate national innovation performance. Figure 1 shows the results for the 2006 SII. For Croatia, Turkey, the US and Japan the SII is an estimate based on a more limited set of indicators. The relative position of these countries in Figure 1 should thus be interpreted with care1.

Sweden, Finland, Switzerland and Denmark are the European innovation leaders. Slovenia, Estonia and Czech Republic are the best performing new Member States, outperforming as many as four EU15 countries.

Figure 1: The 2006 Summary Innovation Index (SII)

Figure 2 shows current performance as measured by the SII on the vertical axis against short-run trend performance of the SII on the horizontal axis. Based on their SII score and the growth rate of the SII, the countries included in the analysis can be divided in four groups or clusters2:

  • Sweden, Switzerland, Finland, Denmark, Japan and Germany are the innovation leaders, with SII scores well above that of the EU25 and the other countries. The lead of the innovation leaders has been declining compared to the average of the EU25, with the exception of Denmark.
  • The US, UK, Iceland, France, Netherlands, Belgium, Austria and Ireland are the innovation followers, with SII scores below those of the innovation leaders but above that of the EU25 and the other countries. The above EU25 average innovation performance of the followers has been declining. Also, the gap of the innovation followers with the innovation leaders has on average slightly increased.
  • Slovenia, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Portugal, Poland, Latvia, Greece and Bulgaria make up the group of catching-up countries, with SII scores well below that of the EU25 and the innovation leaders, but with faster than average innovation performance improvement.
  • Estonia, Spain, Italy, Malta, Hungary, Croatia and Slovakia are trailing, with SII scores well below that of the EU25 and the innovation leaders and innovation performance growth which is either below or only just above that of the EU25.

Cyprus and Romania form a separate fifth cluster of fast growing catching-up countries.  Cyprus being one of the smallest EU countries and Romania starting from very low levels of innovation performance, this cluster is less robust than the other clusters and is therefore not seen as a real cluster. Luxembourg, Norway and Turkey do not fit into any of these groups.

Figure 2: SII and trends




Current performance as measured by the SII is shown on the vertical axis. Relative to EU25 growth performance of the SII is shown on the horizontal axis. This creates four quadrants: countries above both the average EU25 trend and the average EU25 SII are forging ahead from the EU25, countries below the average SII but with an above average trend performance are catching up, countries with a below average SII and a below average trend are falling behind, and countries with an above average SII and a below average trend maintain their lead but are growing at a slower rate.

Figure 2 suggests that there is a process of convergence in innovation performance in Europe: the catching-up countries are closing the gap with the EU25 and both the innovation leaders and followers are experiencing a relative decline in their innovation lead with the EU25. This relative decline is a straightforward result of the rapid increases in innovation performance in the new member states.

 

1 The Technical Annex provides more details.

2 These groups were determined using hierarchical clustering techniques.