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February 26, 2007
EU innovation scorecard
While the US discusses how to measure innovation (and decides it is all about productivity), the EU has released its latest European Innovation Scorecard 2006. And based on their Summary Innovation Index (SII), the US is now an innovation follower:
• Sweden, Switzerland, Finland, Denmark, Japan and Germany are the innovation leaders, with SII scores well above that of the EU25 and the other countries. The lead of the innovation leaders has been declining compared to the average of the EU25, with the exception of Denmark.
• The US, UK, Iceland, France, Netherlands, Belgium, Austria and Ireland are the innovation followers, with SII scores below those of the innovation leaders but above that of the EU25 and the other countries. The above EU25 average innovation performance of the innovation followers has been declining. Also, the gap of the innovation followers with the innovation leaders has on average slightly increased.
• Slovenia, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Portugal, Poland, Latvia, Greece and Bulgaria make up the group of catching-up countries, with SII scores well below that of the EU25 and the innovation leaders, but with faster than average innovation performance improvement.
• Estonia, Spain, Italy, Malta, Hungary, Croatia and Slovakia seem to be trailing, with SII scores well below that of the EU25 and the innovation leaders, and innovation performance growth which is either below or only just above that of the EU25.
I have to quibble with the definition of "innovation follower" - since it means above average but not in the top 10%. This is especially confusing when they admit, "The US and Japan are still ahead of the EU25 in terms of innovation performance, but the innovation gap between the EU25 and Japan, and in particular with the US is decreasing."
I also have to question these comparison, as compete data is not available for all countries. For example, under the Innovation & Entrepreneurship category, there is no complete EU data or US data on 4 of the 6 elements: SMEs innovating in-house; Innovative SMEs co-operating with others; Innovation expenditures; and SMEs using organizational innovation. Nor was there complete EU or US data 2 of the 5 elements of the Applications category: Sales share of new-to-market products and Sales share of new-to-firm products. (As the accompanying report on individual countries admits, "Only four indicators are available for year 2005. The figure below shows the latest available data for United States, yet ten indicators are still missing.")
Still, it is a useful look at international innovation. There is also an extensive section on innovation in regions: Stockholm is the most innovative, London is 35th (out of 203 - and behind other areas of the UK) and Sicily is 177th.
The report also outlines a number of possible new innovation measures. As is well known, our innovation metrics leave a lot to be desired. The authors of this report -- the Maastricht Economic Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT) and the Joint Research Centre (Institute for the Protection and Security of the Citizen) -- are to be commended for their work.
Let us hope that the Secretary of Commerce's Advisory Committee on Measuring Innovation in the 21st Century Economy (see Friday's posting) can come up with something as useful.
Posted by Ken Jarboe at February 26, 2007 8:31 AM
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