Since 2001 the European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS) has been providing an annual assessment of innovation performance across the EU. The 2010 edition marks the debut of the new Innovation Union Scoreboard (IUS) after the adoption of the Innovation Union Communication in October 2010. Building on the previous experience of the EIS, the Innovation Union Scoreboard 2010 provides a better picture of the EU's overall situation. International comparability, in particular, has been improved and the scoreboard also closely integrates research and innovation to help monitor the implementation of the Innovation Union. The Scoreboard provides a comparative assessment of the research and innovation performance of the EU27 Member States and the relative strengths and weaknesses of their research and innovation systems. In this way, it complements the Europe 2020 Annual Growth Survey and helps Member States assess areas in which they need to concentrate to boost their innovation performance.

What are the main conclusions of the 2010 Research and Innovation Union Scoreboard?

Countries at the top of the ranking for the composite innovation indicator have in common a number of strengths in their national research and innovation systems. While there is no single way to attain top innovation performance, most innovation leaders perform very well in business R&D expenditure and other innovation indicators related to firm activities.

All the innovation leaders have higher than average scores in the public-private co-publications per million of population indicator, which points to good linkages between the science base and businesses. All Europe's most innovative countries also excel in the commercialisation of their technological knowledge, as demonstrated by their good performance on the "License and patent revenues from abroad" indicator.

The results show that successful countries have a consistently high performance across all or most of the indicators. There is no evidence that success can be achieved on the back of exceptional performances in a limited number of areas, compensating for other indicators scoring poorly.

Source: CORDIS

The full report is available at:

http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/policies/innovation/facts-figures-analysis/index_en.htm

and

http://www.proinno-europe.eu/metrics

Direct link: http://www.proinno-europe.eu/sites/default/files/docs_EIS2010/IUS_2010_final.pdf

What is being said on the countries of the Western Balkans?

Specific tables are provided for each of the analysed countries.

Croatia, covered with tables on page 51 of the report, is described as one of the moderate innovators with a below average performance.
Relative strengths are in Human resources, Innovators and Outputs. Relative weaknesses are in Open, excellent and attractive research systems and Intellectual assets.
High growth is observed for Non-R&D innovation expenditure, Public-private copublications and Community designs. A strong decline is observed for PCT patent applications and License and patent revenues from abroad. Growth performance in Firm investments, Linkages & entrepreneurship and Intellectual assets is above average. In the other dimensions it is below average.

Serbia, covered on page 56, is one of the modest innovators with a below average performance.
Relative strengths are in Human resources, Open, excellent and attractive research systems and Outputs. Relative weaknesses are in Intellectual assets and Innovators. High growth is observed for Public-private co-publications, Community trademarks and License and patent revenues from abroad. A strong decline is observed for Business R&D expenditure, Community designs and Sales of new products. Growth performance in Linkages & entrepreneurship, Intellectual assets and Outputs is above average. In the other dimensions it is below average.

fYR of Macedonia, covered on page 57, is one of the modest innovators with a below average performance.
Relative strengths are in Innovators Relative weaknesses are in Open, excellent and attractive research systems, Finance and support and Intellectual assets. High growth is observed for New doctorate graduates, Knowledge-intensive services exports and License and patent revenues from abroad. A strong decline is observed for
PCT patent applications and Community trademarks. Growth performance in Human resources, Firm investments and Outputs is above average, Growth performance in Finance and support and Intellectual assets is below average. 

For additional information, see IP/11/114. For the performance of individual countries, see the full report available on the Innovation Union website.