The US succeeded in retaining its lead over the EU in 11 out of 15 innovation indicators, including enrolment in tertiary education, public and private R&D expenditure and the number of patents registered, according to the 2007 European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS), published on 14 February 2008.
The study, which aims to evaluate and compare the innovation performance of EU member states, revealed that Japan also stayed ahead of the EU in all these fields, causing a blow to the EU's stated 'Lisbon' goal of becoming the most innovative and competitive knowledge-based economy in the world.
However, while the Union remains fifteen points behind Japan and ten points behind the US overall, the bloc's three most innovative countries – Sweden, Finland and Denmark – are in fact ahead of both these rivals, while Germany and the UK come in just ahead of the US.
According to the study, the progress recorded by the EU last year can mainly be explained by the growing number of science and engineer graduates, a greater use of trademarks and designs and increased employment in medium- and high-tech manufacturing industries. The EU is also closing the gap as regards broadband penetration, early-stage venture capital and ICT expenditure.
On the other hand, EU countries have significant room for improvement as regards volume of high-tech exports and spending on R&D expenditure, as well as in terms of what the study terms "innovation efficiency".
Indeed, the report finds that most EU members, including innovation leaders such as Sweden and the UK, are still failing to transform knowledge inputs into actual intellectual property outputs.
Enterprise Commissioner Günter Verheugen commented: "The apparent slowdown in catching up with the US and in particular the increasing gap in public research and development show that reinforced efforts are needed if we are to create more world-class innovation in Europe."
On a more positive note, the study foresees that some of the EU's new member states, such as the Czech Republic, Estonia and Lithuania, are on track to reach the EU average within less than a decade.
