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The EU trend chart on innovation has just released its innovation policy statement for 2003 to asses if the EU countries are keeping up with their ambitious goals. And the outlook so far is more negative than positive, for example none of the candidate countries has a coherent national innovation strategy!
At the European Council in Lisbon in March 2000, heads of state and governments set the Union the ambitious goal of becoming "the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world by the end of the decade". Every year the EU trend chart maps the progress and this is some of the findings of 2002:
 Almost all Member States are actively developing fiscal incentives for innovation, but these efforts are hampered by the lack of a suitable definition of non-R&D innovation activities. The focus on research tends to discriminate against small and medium sized companies.
Many countries now have well-established public sector equity finance support schemes. These often target early-stage academic spin-offs, but there is widespread agreement that such support should be used to leverage private sector investment.
There has been a generally positive response to calls for the establishment of new schemes of entrepreneurship and innovation management education and training.
Many countries have added a `third mission' of cooperating with industry to universities' traditional educational and research roles, and are introducing schemes to support the mobility of researchers between public research institutions and private sector companies.
None of the candidate countries yet has a coherent national innovation strategy with its own budget and implemented through practical measures of real benefit to innovation actors.The transfer of innovation policy know-how from EU Member States to candidate countries is progressing but is still at an early stage.
Among innovation policy-makers, awareness of the potential benefits of transnational learning is growing. However, most European governments make no systematic attempt to learn from international good practice. The smaller Member States seem to be more open to learning from abroad.
The 2002 trend chart confirms that the innovation performance of the overall EU is still low compared to its main global competitors. Though looking at individual Member States, the statistics confirm that the world's leading countries for many innovation indicators are found within the EU. The leading innovative countries in the EU are the smaller northern economies, including Finland, Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands. The UK is the most innovative of the larger economies. For seven of the ten comparable indicators, the EU leaders are ahead of both the US and Japan.
For a complete look at the 2002 trend chart and innovation policy assessment take a look at: http://trendchart.cordis.lu/.
N E W S
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