THE ROAD TO HIGER PERFORMANCE OF TWO EU MODEST INNOVATORS

Abstract

Once the economic upsurge ended and the crisis settled in, the decisional behaviour regarding research, development and innovation in the public as well as private sectors deflected the upward trend of innovation performance indicators for both Bulgaria and Romania. While the overall innovation index for EU27 kept a positive growth rate, the evolution of the input and output innovation indicators for both countries along 2009 have downgraded their relative position amongst the EU countries. Therefore, in 2010, Bulgaria and Romania were screened out from the “catching-up countries” and moved back in the “modest innovators” cluster, where they have hovered until now. The challenge for the decision makers in Bulgaria and Romania, as well as of the experts is to identify the strategic alternatives that would capitalize on their relative strengths and potential in order to outstrip their current position and to fully benefit from being integral part of the European Research Area. This would also require careful analyses over specific challenges, threats and weaknesses. Based on various methods of quantitative and qualitative analysis over a wide range of indicators describing aspects of the R&D and innovation performance, the aim of our study is to identify the opportunities for redressing the current trends for both countries with respect to their innovative performance.

Keywords

• innovation performance
• research
• development and innovation systems in Romania and Bulgaria
• European Research Area