Filenews 21 June 2021
Continuous convergence within the EU, with underperforming countries raising higher speeds than those with higher performance, thus closing the innovation gap between them, is reflected in the European Innovation Scoreboard 2021. On average, innovation performance has increased by 12.5% since 2014.
According to the 2021 Regional Innovation Scoreboard also published today, this trend is recorded in all regions of the EU.
On average, the EU's innovation performance has increased by 12.5 percentage points since 2014, while the highest growth rates have been achieved by Cyprus, Estonia, Greece, Italy and Lithuania.
On the global landscape, the EU's performance appears better than its competitors, such as China, Brazil, South Africa, Russia and India, while South Korea, Canada, Australia, the United States and Japan take the lead.
This year's Scoreboard for European Innovation is based on a revised framework, which includes new indicators for digitisation and environmental sustainability, bringing the scoreboard more in line with the EU's political priorities.
Important findings
Based on their scores, EU countries fall into four performance groups: Innovation Leaders, Powerful Innovators, Moderate Innovators and Emerging Innovators.
Cyprus is part of the category of moderate innovative. Since 2018, its performance compared to other EU countries has improved significantly, according to the Commission, as it has achieved one of the highest rates of improvement and is among the five countries that achieved an increase in the index by 25 or more percentage points.
In summary, the conclusions of this year's table are summarised as follows:
Sweden continues to be the EU's leader in innovation, followed by Finland, Denmark and Belgium, all with innovation performance well above the EU average.
Performance teams tend to be geographically concentrated, with innovation leaders and most powerful innovators located in Northern and Western Europe, and most of the Moderate and Emerging Innovators in Southern and Eastern Europe.
Five Member States showed an improvement in performance of 25 percentage points or more (Cyprus, Estonia, Greece, Italy and Lithuania). Four Member States showed an improvement in performance of between 15 and 25 percentage points (Belgium, Croatia, Finland and Sweden). For eight Member States, the yield improved by between 10 and 15 percentage points (Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, Latvia Malta, the Netherlands, Poland and Spain). The remaining 10 Member States showed an improvement in performance of up to ten percentage points.
Comparing the EU average with a range of global competitors, South Korea is the most innovative country, yielding 36% above the EU score in 2014 and 21% above the EU in 2021. The EU is ahead of China, Brazil, South Africa, Russia and India, while Canada, Australia, the United States and Japan have a lead over the EU.
Innovation performance increased for 225 regions out of a total of 240 regions in the period from 2014. There has been a process of convergence in regional performance over time, with reduced performance differences between regions.
At EU regional level, the most innovative is Stockholm in Sweden, followed by Edela Susomi, Finland and Oberbayern in Germany. Hoffenstaden in Denmark is in fourth place and Zurich in Switzerland is in fifth place.
Source: eyenews/ot.gr
