If you are European and want to depress yourself, you could do a lot worse than read the Innovation Union Competitiveness Report 2011, published by the European Commission last month. It’s a huge piece of work, so to save you a bit of time, here are its main findings:
• The EU is slowly advancing towards its 3% R&D target - but there is a widening gap between the EU and its world competitors notably due to weaker business R&D investment.
• The economic crisis has hit business R&D investments hard. However, as part of a counter-cyclic effort, many European countries are maintaining or increasing their levels of public R&D funding.
• Europe is host of a large and diversified pool of skilled human resources in particular in Science and Technology, which the business sector is not fully nor optimally making use of; in terms of new tertiary educated graduates, China now weights as much as the EU, the United States and Japan combined.
• While remaining a top player in terms of knowledge production and scientific excellence, Europe is loosing ground as regards the exploitation of research results.
• Member States are introducing reforms to improve the functioning of the public research base and increase public-private cooperation - however knowledge transfer in Europe remains weak.
To read the full, original article click on this link: Europe falling further behind in innovation says new Commission report - Blog - IAM magazine
Author: Joff Wild
