A mixed innovation picture for Poland, France and Germany
This year's innovation scoreboard presents a mixed picture, not only in terms of overall innovation performance, but also in relation to the individual areas of strength and weakness around Europe. This diversity of performance is evident upon examining just three countries of a similar size: Germany, at the very heart of the EU, and its immediate neighbours to the east and west, Poland and France. The three countries represent three of the four categories identified by the writers of the innovation scoreboard: 'leading countries' (Germany); 'average performance' (France); and 'losing ground' (Poland). The fourth category is 'catching up'. While Poland is currently behind its partners in the Weimar Triangle, it is not experiencing the potential bottlenecks that are emerging in Germany and France. Germany ranks fourth out of the 25 EU Member States. The country's strengths lie in knowledge creation, innovation and entrepreneurship, applications and intellectual property rights (IPR). Surprisingly, indicators under the heading 'innovation drivers' show below average performance for Germany, and the country was also found to have low innovation demand and poor innovation governance (affected by the high costs of establishing a business). This may mean that Germany's capacity to continue providing skilled workers for innovative companies is limited. The current negative trend in both science and engineering (S&E) graduates and the youth education attainment level, both classified as 'innovation drivers', could lead to a bottleneck restricting Germany's output. Other indicators also point to potential problems ahead for Germany, including that of venture capital, where Germany performed poorly. This could impede the creation of new start-ups and high technology spin-offs. To the west of Germany is France, ranking ninth out of 25. Its relative strengths are in knowledge creation, innovation drivers and applications, while its greatest weakness is in innovation and entrepreneurship. Its enviable performance in innovation drivers is due to an ample supply of new S&E graduates, which is well above the average for the EU. An area of weakness is non-technological change, which many firms have been slow to adopt. France also invests slightly less than the EU average in information and communication technology (ICT). Another cause for concern is that superior performance on innovation drivers is not leading to a similar performance for knowledge creation and entrepreneurship. The writers of the scoreboard suggest that a key bottleneck could be insufficient linkages between the public and private research systems, with France having less university research financed by business (44 per cent of EU average). A quick glance at the results for Poland paints a gloomy picture of the country's innovation system. But although Poland only exceeds the EU average in four out of 26 indicators, there are trends which point to a more innovative future in Poland. On the negative side, conditions for knowledge creation were found to be worsening, primarily due to a decrease in business research and development (R&D) from 0.28 per cent of GDP in 1998 to 0.16 per cent in 2003. This is however still higher than 2002's figure of 0.13 per cent. Public R&D expenditure has changed very little from the 2003 level of 0.43 per cent of GDP. On a more positive note, Poland exceeds the EU average for youth education attainment level, total firm innovation expenditures (50 per cent above the EU average), ICT expenditures and new-to-firm product sales. The supply of new S&D graduates has also been growing consistently since 1998, and the trend is above the EU average, while the share of the population with a tertiary education is currently 71 per cent of the EU average and on the increase. This is an advantage that Poland has over Germany, one of the four highest innovation performers in the EU, and puts the country in a potentially strong position with regard to the future.
Countries
Germany, France, Poland