Innovation performance of EU countries in the context of research and development expenditures

Abstract

Innovations are essential to economic reality, mainly due to growing domestic, international or world competition. The contribution is focused on comparing the innovation performance of EU countries with an emphasis on Slovakia using the European Innovation Scoreboard and the Regional Innovation Scoreboard. The aim is to verify the dependence of the innovation performance of EU countries on research and development expenditure. According to the European Innovation Scoreboard 2023, the classification of Member States into performance groups remains unchanged compared to the previous year, still showing a geographical concentration. Performance gaps between Member States narrowed between 2016 and 2023. Slovakia belongs to countries with a relative performance below 70% of the European Union average, while its innovation performance is growing more slowly than in the EU. According to the Regional Innovation Scoreboard 2023, all regions of Slovakia belong to the emerging innovators of the upper third, except the Bratislava region, which is included in the group of moderate innovators of the upper third. All regions have increased their performance. An increase in research and development expenditures is required to improve the current situation in the innovation policy of the Slovak Republic. This conclusion is derived considering a significant interdependence between research and development expenditures and innovation performance was confirmed by regression analysis.