New Innovation Union Scoreboard 2013

By Marielk. Innovation capacity is high on the agenda for the European Union who has recently published the most recent ranking of member states, the so called Innovation Union Scoreboard 2013.
The Innovation Union is one of the seven flagship projects within the Europe 2020 strategy, where the main activities are coordinated under the slogan “more jobs, improved lives and better society”. The three main aims are to put Europe to the world class in science production, remove barriers for innovation and improved coordination of public and private sector.
The results from 2013 Innovation Scoreboard indicate that those who have been in the forefront in terms of their innovation capacity have continued their success and further increased their capacity. However, the gap from these leaders to the other member states is widening as there are also countries that have not been able to contirbute as much to the developments.
The press release quotes the Commissioner for Industry and Entrepreneurship, said: “This year’s results show that the economic crisis has negatively impacted innovation activity in some parts of Europe. Investment in innovation is crucial if we want to maintain our global competitiveness and restore growth in Europe.“
They further quote the Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science, who highlighted the importance of innovation as a strategic policy aim “Innovation should now be at the heart of all Member States’ policy agendas. Our latest State of the Innovation Union report, also published today, shows we made progress in 2012 on some of the big ticket items (…), but we need to go further in order to avoid an innovation divide in Europe.” Read more...