EU innovation scoreboard calls for performance pick-up

The majority of EU Member States may have posted stronger innovation performance results in 2008, but countries with lower innovation performance levels are likely to be responsible for reversing the convergence process that the EU has undergone in the last few years.

Despite the EU’s drive and determination to meet and potentially surpass the US in terms of innovation performance, the results show the opposite is happening. However, the EU still maintains an advantage over Brazil, China, India and Russia, which are all emerging economies.

In a joint statement, Commission Vice President Antonio Tajani, who is also the Commissioner for Industry and Entrepreneurship, and Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, Commissioner for Research, said : ’This scoreboard provides invaluable evidence on trends in innovation performance. The overall picture is positive ; there are, however, some worrying signs and we will have to take this very seriously in developing the measures to accomplish what we just laid out in our Europe 2020 strategy.’

It should be noted that Commissioner Geoghegan-Quinn is responsible for implementing a cross-cutting approach to innovation in the new Commission.

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More information on the Innovation scoreboard on the Pro Inno Europe website

The regional perspective of the 2009 innovation scoreboard is also available on the Pro Inno Europe website

Related article : CARINNA launches PERIA, a European project dedicated to regional innovation agencies http://www.carinna.fr/CARINNA-launc...

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