Innovation Union Scoreboard 2014

The 4th edition of the European "Innovation Union Scoreboard" (IUS) was published in early March 2014.

This dashboard is the successor to the European scoreboard for Innovation that was established under the Lisbon Strategy (2000-2010). The purpose of this statistical tool, which is based on 25 indicators divided into three main categories and 8 dimensions of innovation, is to allow the monitoring of the implementation of the Europe 2020 Strategy and, in particular, the flagship initiative relative to innovation.

The IUS offers Member States a dashboard comparison of the relative performance of EU Member States concerning innovation together with an analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of national systems of research and innovation. A composite indicator called "Summary Innovation Index" (SII) is then calculated on the basis of data from this scoreboard.

In the 2014 edition, the ranking of EU member states is headed by Sweden, Denmark, Germany and Finland ("innovation leaders"). Luxembourg occupies fifth position, the Netherlands 6th, Belgium 7th and finally France in 11th position.

Luxembourg is top ranked and among the countries of the category "innovation followers", performing better than the EU average but not sufficiently strong to be among the class leaders displaying innovation performance of at least 20% higher than the EU average.

The IUS 2014 also analyses the performance of countries over the years. Luxembourg shows a positive trend for the value of the composite SII index, despite the fact that during the period of economic and financial crisis, its score temporarily dropped in 2010 and 2011.

In conclusion, the following report includes observations with respect to the strengths and weaknesses of Luxembourg:
"Relative strengths are in International scientific co-publications, community trademarks, Venture capital investments and in Community designs. Luxembourg performs well below the average for Non-R&D innovation expenditures and new doctorate graduates. High growth is observed for International scientific co-publications, Most cited scientific publications and R&D expenditures in the public sector. Strong declines are observed in Non-R&D innovation expenditures, Sales share of new innovations and R&D expenditures in the business sector".

Further information is available via: ec.europa.eu