The innovation gap with the US keeps narrowing: 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. [...]
Based on their overall innovation score and their recent historical trend, the authors grouped the countries in four categories (...):
* Innovation leaders: Sweden, Switzerland, Finland, Denmark, Germany and Japan
* Innovation followers: UK, Iceland, France, Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Ireland, US
* Catching-up countries: Slovenia, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Portugal, Poland, Latvia, Greece, Bulgaria, Cyprus and Romania
* Trailing countries: Estonia, Spain, Italy, Malta, Hungary, Croatia and Slovakia
Luxembourg, Norway and Turkey would not fit in any of these categories.
