Slovenia remains strong EU innovator
Brussels, 2 July - The European system of innovation indicators shows Slovenia has stayed a "strong innovator" and the leader among the younger members of the EU.
The European Commission's recently published European Innovation Scoreboard 2018 report ranks Slovenia 12th among EU member states, while giving it a 2017 innovation index of 92.2.
Thus, Slovenia is 7.8 points below the EU average, it has however advanced in the index measuring the performance progress made in the period since 2010. Here, Slovenia has advanced from 95.9 points in 2010 to 97.3.
Slovenia scored 97.8 in last year's report (2010-2016), but the Commission corrected the 2010 starting point from 98 to 95.9 this year.
Slovenia fares the best in human resources (index of 143) and company investment in innovation (121).
In human resources its ranks only behind the leading five, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Great Britain, and the Netherlands, while Sweden, Germany, Austria, Belgium and Finland are the only ones doing better when its comes to firm investment.
The key problem categories on the other hand include innovation-friendly environment (87.7), where Slovenia is around 20th and available finance and support (33.4) where it is only 23rd.
Slovenia is close to the average when it comes to innovation cooperation (112.3), while it is also performing poorly when looking at the impact of innovation on employment (75.4) and sales (75).
Sweden is the innovation leader in the report, followed by Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Great Britain and Luxembourg.
Following the "leaders" are the "strong innovators" Germany, Belgium, Ireland, Australia, France and Slovenia.