Press release 19.03.12
According to the New Innovation Union Scoreboard – IUS 2011 – the Basque Country is at number 15 in the EU-27 ranking
La C. A. The Basque Country is situated between the group of countries with high innovation and that of countries with moderate innovation
In the Basque Country the Innovation Union Scoreboard –IUS 2011- stood at 0.46 in 2011, according to data provided by Eustat. It was therefore in 15th place in the European Union-27 ranking, below the 0.54 average.
In the IUS 2011, the EU-27 countries can be grouped into four categories, according to the rating received. In the first group, innovation leader countries, were Sweden (0.75), Denmark (0.72), Germany (0.70) and Finland (0.69), although the European country that was at the vanguard of innovation in Europe was Switzerland (0.83), which does not belong to the European Union.
In the second group, innovation followers, were Belgium, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Austria, Luxemburg, Ireland, France, Slovenia, Cyprus and Estonia with ratings between 0.62 and 0.50.
Next, the third group, countries with moderate innovation, included Italy, Portugal, the Czech Republic, Spain, Hungary, Greece, Malta, Slovakia and Poland, with ratings between 0.44 and 0.30. Lastly, in the fourth group, countries with modest innovation, were Romania, Lituania, Bulgaria and Latvia, with ratings between 0.26 and 0.23 points.
The Basque Country, with a score of 0.46, was situated between the second group, innovation follower countries, and the third group, countries with moderate innovation.
Human Resources, Research Systems and Firm Investments were the three fundamental dimensions of Basque innovation
The Innovation Union Scoreboard –IUS 2011-, which sets out to measure the degree to which economies of countries have the capacity to and develop innovation activities, is structured around three main blocks, with eight dimensions, giving a total of 25 indicators.
The Basque Country, with regard to the European average, performed well in three of these dimensions: Human Resources, Research Systems and Firm Investment. In the other dimensions, the score obtained by the Basque Country was lower than the European Union average.
With regard to Human Resources, the dimensions that record the availability of highly qualified and educated people as a key factor for innovation, the Basque Country stood out for percentage of the “population aged 30 to 34 with tertiary education” (43.7%), whilst the community average stood at 33.6%. The percentage of “young people (aged 20 to 24) who have finished at least upper-secondary education”, was similar in the Basque Country (79.1%) and in the EU-27 (79.0%) On the other hand, the score for “New doctorate graduates between 25 and 34” stood at 1.14 per thousand in the Basque Country whilst in the EU-27 it stood at 1.50 per thousand.
The dimension of level of openness, excellences and attractiveness of Research Systems measures the international competitiveness of scientific networks. Here, the “Number of international scientific co-publications per million inhabitants” stands out, 498 in the Basque Country against 301 in Europe. Meanwhile, the percentage of “Non-EU doctorate students amongst the total of doctorate students in the country” was similar to the average, standing at 18.8% in the Basque Country and 19.2% in the EU-27.
As far as Firm Investments is concerned, a dimension that measures spending on R&D and Innovation in the business sector, the “Private spending on R&D as a percentage over GDP” stands out, with 1.60% in the Basque Country and 1.23% as the European average. On the other hand, the “Non-R&D innovation expenditure” as a percentage of turnover stood at 0.64% in the Basque Country whilst in the EU-27 it stood at 0.71%.
Although in the other dimensions the score achieved was lower than the European average, various indicators stand out where the Basque Country obtained results analogous to those of the European Union:
.-SMEs innovating in-house
.- Innovative SMEs collaborating with others
.- SMEs with product or process innovations
.- EU trademarks
.- Employment in knowledge-intensive activities
.- Medium and high-tech product exports
.- Knowledge-intensive services exports
On the less positive side, there were also a series of indicators that still lagged behind the figures seen in the European Union.
In the Finance & Support dimension, in both “R&D expenditure in the public sector” and “Availability of venture capital”, in terms of percentage over GDP, the values obtained were below the European average. In the Intellectual Assets dimension, it can be seen how the “PCT Patent applications” and “EU Designs” indicators were also below average. The same occurred in Innovators with the percentage of “SMEs with marketing or organisational innovations” and in Economic Effects with turnover obtained by “Sales of new-to-market and new- to-firm innovations” and “Licence and patent revenues from abroad”.
Methodological note: The IUS 2011 is structured, as in the IUS 2010, in 3 main blocks that group 8 dimensions, with a total of 25 simple indicators. Of these, 6 indicators are obtained from the Innovation Survey, biannually in the case of Europe. Given that the last available European survey is the CIS 2008, the values corresponding to these 6 variables have been inserted unaltered into the IUS 2011 with respect to the IUS 2010. The aforementioned limits any temporal comparison of the composed indicator due to it not reflecting the real evolution in its entirety.
Innovation Union Scoreboard, IUS 2011
http://www.proinno-europe.eu/inno-metrics/page/innovation-union-scoreboard-2011
For further information:
Basque Statistics Office
C/ Donostia-San Sebastián, 1 01010 Vitoria-Gasteiz
Tel:+34-945-01 75 00 Fax:+34-945-01 75 01 E-mail: eustat@eustat.eus
Contact: Haritz Olaeta Goiriena
Tel: :+34-945-01 75 02 Fax:+34-945-01 75 01
Further press releases on Innovation Union Scoreboard - IUS