BQF Innovation

For the past 7 years the European Commission has compiled an assessment of the innovation competitiveness of all the EU states and some other countries as comparisons.  The 2007 report has recently been published and you can read the full report.  The key factors that are used to compare the performance of countries are as follows:

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.

There are some 38 countries listed.  Here are the top 20:

1. Sweden
2. Switzerland
3. Finland
4. Israel
5. Denmark
6. Japan
7. Germany
8. UK
9. USA
10. Iceland
11. Ireland
12. Austria
13. Netherlands
14. France
15. Belgium
16. (EU Average)
17. Canada
18. Estonia
19. Australia
20. Norway

The report states that  the innovation gap between the EU and its two main competitors, the US and Japan, has been falling but remains significant. The US keeps its lead in 11 out of 15 indicators and Japan keeps its lead in 12 out of 14 such indicators.  A comparison over time shows that the EU is experiencing an increasing lead over the US in Science and Engineering graduates, employment in medium-high and high-tech manufacturing and Community trademarks, and a stable lead in Community designs. The EU is experiencing a declining gap with the US in broadband penetration, early-stage venture capital, ICT expenditures and triad patents. But the gap with the US is increasing in public R&D expenditures and high-tech exports.

The report is rather dry and it involves some estimates that can be challenged.  It would be better if China, India, Brazil and some other countries were included but their data is not available.  However, it is the best comparison we have and contains some very revealing data.

Paul Sloane

This entry was posted on Friday, February 22nd, 2008 at 8:48 pm and is filed under Innovation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.