European Innovation Scoreboard: Base Findings

Five key dimensions of innovation performance

Innovation is a non-linear process. The 25 EIS innovation indicators have been classified into five dimensions to better capture the various aspects of the innovation process1. Innovation drivers measure the structural conditions required for innovation potential, Knowledge creation measures the investments in R&D activities, Innovation & entrepreneurship measures the efforts towards innovation at the firm level, Applications measures the performance expressed in terms of labour and business activities and their value added in innovative sectors, and Intellectual property measures the achieved results in terms of successful know-how.
 

In terms of this year’s composite indicator scores, the innovation leaders perform best on all innovation dimensions (see Figure 3). The innovation followers score second on every innovation dimension. Of the countries showing a below EU25 innovation performance, the trailing countries perform better than the catching-up countries on Knowledge creation, Applications and Intellectual property but worse on Innovation drivers and Innovation & entrepreneurship.
Figure 4 shows the ranking of countries for each of the 5 dimensions, from worst to best performer. Countries generally perform at a comparable level in each of these dimensions. However, there are some noteworthy exceptions. Germany and Austria are performing relatively worse in Innovation drivers, the Netherlands in Innovation & entrepreneurship, and the Netherlands, Austria and Iceland in Applications. Of the stagnating countries, Estonia is among the best performers in Innovation & entrepreneurship and Malta in Applications.