Performance by country
Performance by country
European Innovation Scoreboard: Base FindingsInnovation performance by countryTable 2 identifies for each indicator the three European countries with the highest scores1 and the results for the EU25, EU15, US and Japan. The innovation leaders take up more than 50% of the leading slots, the innovation followers take up 20% and the trailing countries and catching-up countries each 10% of the leading slots. The innovation leaders are particularly dominant in knowledge creation, innovation & entrepreneurship and intellectual property. The innovation followers are most dominant in innovation drivers. Table 2: Innovation performance leaders
Best performance across the indicators is scattered across Europe, with as much as 22 countries being among the best 3 performing countries in at least one indicator. Sweden does best being among the best 3 performing countries in 10 indicators, followed by Denmark and Germany each taking up 8 of the leading slots. For many indicators, differences among the best performers are too small to identify an overall best performing country. Only for the share of firms receiving public funding (LU), high-tech exports (MT), the sales share of new-to-firm products (PT), EPO patents (CH) and community trademarks and designs (LU) one can identify an overall ‘innovation leader’. The indicators of innovation performance suggest that a country can be an innovation leader only if it has a well established innovation system with all elements in place. While practically all EU member states excel in one or the other innovation dimension, only some of them have achieved the overall performance to become world innovation leaders. The US performs better than the EU in 11 indicators, while the EU only scores above the US in 4 indicators (S&E graduates, employment in medium-high and high-tech manufacturing, community trademarks and community designs). Japan performs better than the EU in 11 indicators, while the EU only scores above Japan in 3 indicators (share of medium-high and high-tech R&D, community trademarks and community designs). Indeed, performance in intellectual property is biased due to the home advantage that local companies have in their local market. This home advantage explains the very high patent score for the US on USPTO patents and the poor performance for the US and Japan on both community trademarks and community designs within the EU. While the US and Japan both outperform Europe in USPTO patents, the opposite is not the case for EPO patents.
1 European countries are defined as the group of EU25 countries, Iceland, Norway and Switzerland.
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