Growth is increasingly related to the capacity of regional economies to change and innovate. Regions and cities have become key spatial units where knowledge is transferred, innovation systems are built and competition to attract investments and talents takes place.
Regions are an appropriate level for stimulating innovation: Many regional governments have important competences and budgets in the field of innovation. Their geographical proximity facilitates the acquisition, accumulation and use of knowledge.
Regions' performance depends not only on that of enterprises and research institutes but also on interactions between different stakeholders, enterprises and organisations, whose knowledge and know-how build up over time. The Regional Innovation Scoreboard helps to understand innovation in the regional context and provides some statistical facts on regions' innovation performance.
Regional Innovation Scoreboard 2014
At the EU regional level, most of the regions improved their innovation performance but at the same time innovation performance worsened for 35 regions scattered across 15 countries, according to the Regional Innovation Scoreboard 2014.
Overall, similar as in the Innovation Union Scoreboard where countries are classified into 4 different innovation performance groups, Europe's regions have also been classified into Regional Innovation leaders (34 regions), Regional Innovation followers (57 regions), Regional Moderate innovators (68 regions) and Regional Modest innovators (31 regions).
All the EU regional innovation leaders (27 regions) are located in only eight EU Member States: Denmark, Germany, Finland, France, Ireland, Netherlands, Sweden and United Kingdom. This indicates that innovation excellence is concentrated in relatively few areas in Europe.
More detailed information is provided in the press release and in the memo.
The report is attached here below (7Mb)