Baltic, EU – Baltic States, Good for Business, Innovations, Latvia, Technology

Today the European Commission released the 2016 results of the European Innovation Scoreboard, the Regional Innovation Scoreboard and the Innobarometer.

The main findings are that EU innovation is catching up with Japan and the US, Sweden is once again the innovation leader, and Latvia has become the fastest growing innovator.

Sweden is once more the EU innovation leader, followed by Denmark, Finland, Germany and the Netherlands.

In selected areas of innovation, the EU leaders are: Sweden – human resources and quality of academic research; Finland – financial framework conditions; Germany – private investment in innovation; Belgium – innovation networks and collaboration; and Ireland – innovation in small and medium-sized companies.

The fastest growing innovators are Latvia, Malta, Lithuania, the Netherlands and the UK.

Overall, the key driver of becoming an innovation leader is to adopt a balanced innovation system which combines an appropriate level of public and private investment, effective innovation partnerships among companies and with academia, as well as a strong educational basis and excellent research. The economic impact of innovation needs to manifest itself in terms of sales and exports of innovative products as well as in employment, the Commission said.