METHODOLOGICAL DEBATE ON THE ‘REGIONAL INNOVATION SCOREBOARD’.
METHODOLOGICAL DEBATE ON THE ‘REGIONAL INNOVATION SCOREBOARD’.
(between 70 and 100% of the EU average: Italy, Cyprus, Malta, Slovenia, Spain, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Portugal and Greece), and emerging innovators (below 70% of the EU average: Cro - atia, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, Latvia, Bulgaria and Romania). On average, the EU’s innovation performance has increased by 12.5% since 2014. Innovation performance has increased since 2014 in all EU member states, being highest for Cyprus, Estonia, Greece, Italy and Lithuania. More recently, between 2020 and 2021, performance has improved in twenty Member States, nota- bly Cyprus and Estonia, and declined in seven: France, Ireland, Latvia, Luxembourg, the Neth- erlands, Portugal and Slovakia. (FIGURE 1) Based on the findings of recent EIS reports, Spain has been included in the moderate innovators group (light-pink group in Figure 1), as its innovation system is on a smaller scale than that of the average EU country. Analysing growth by the SII index for Spain shows that it grew by 16.2% between 2014 and 2021, which is above the EU average (12.5%). This seems to point to the fact that Spain is immersed in a convergence process within the EU, where countries with lower innovation performance grow faster than those with higher perfor- mance. However, the trend shown by those countries found alongside Spain in the moder- ate innovators category (Figure 2) points to the need to qualify the above statement. Although Spain (black line) is among the countries with a higher SII in the moderate innovators category in 2021 (only Italy, Cyprus, Malta and Slovenia show a higher SII in this category), it is striking that countries with a lower SII show significant - ly higher growth rates than Spain. For example, Lithuania’s SII has grown by 50.4% between 2014 and 2021, Cyprus’ by 45%, Greece’s by 41.3%, Italy’s by 31.8%, and Malta’s by 17.2% 4 . This fact shows that other moderate innovat- ing countries' convergence rates with the EU average are significantly higher than for Spain, which points to the need, firstly, to reconsider the amount of resources invested in the nation-
FIGURE 1 Innovation performance of European countries and country categories
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Score relative to EU27 average in 2014 (=100) Source: European Union (2021: 6)
Spain remains in the third ranking category, i.e. mod- erate innovator
LEADING INNOVATORS STRONG INNOVATORS MODERATE INNOVATORS EMERGING INNOVATORS
IN 2014
IN 2020
EU 27 100
0
50
150
16.2%
SWEDEN FINLAND DENMARK
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
BELGIUM HOLLAND GERMANY LUXEMB O URG
Spain’s EIS growth rate for 2014-2021, higher than the EU average
AUSTRIA ESTONIA FRANCE IR E LAND EU AVERAGE ITALY CYPRUS MALTA SLOVENIA SPAIN CZECH REPUBLIC
10 11
12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27
LITHUANIA PORTUGAL GREECE CROA T IA HUNG ARY SLOVAKIA POLAND LATVIA BULGARIA R O MAN I A
26
27
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