Europe: European Innovation Scoreboard 2006 published

The European Innovation Scoreboard measures the innovation performance of a country’s economy based on a wide range of 25 indicators, from education to expenditure in Information and Communication Technologies, investment in R&D or number of patents. Countries with a more homogeneous behavior in all aspects of innovation tend to achieve higher overall scores.

“…For the fourth consecutive year, the innovation gap between the US and the EU has decreased. The Nordic countries and Switzerland continue to be the innovation leaders worldwide, while many of the new Member States are steadily catching up with the EU average. These are some of the main findings of the European Innovation Scoreboard 2006, published today. The report presents a comparative analysis of the innovation performance of European countries, the US and Japan…“

Click on the image for the jump.

The report groups the countries into four clusters described as following: “…

• 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 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 are 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.

…”

More information in the EU press release and at the INNO Metrics web site.