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enterprises, that are connected with creation and implementation of innovations, but also of
public sphere (or more precisely political sphere), that search for all possible ways how to
support innovation efforts of enterprises (e. g. Klusáček et al, 2008).
In order to find out how the economics are successful in their innovation efforts it
was necessary to create sophisticated system of statistical surveys that brings reliable data
which can be used not only for analysis of static indicators but also for observation their
dynamic changes in the process of time.
THE AIM OF THE STUDY
To evaluate the innovation performance of the Czech Republic, namely on the
national level (the position of the Czech Republic among the EU member states) and also on
the regional level (innovation activity of enterprises in the Czech Republic).
MATERIALS AND METHODS
It can be reached through analysis of results of the European Innovation Scoreboard
(EIS) and analysis of innovation survey in the Czech Republic. Another aim of the
contribution is to propose some recommendations for improving of Czech innovation
performance in the future.
The article is based on the results of the European Innovation Scoreboard and on the
results of Czech statistical survey on innovations.
European Innovation Scoreboard
In 2009 the ninth evaluation of innovation performance was carried out. This
evaluation called European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS) assesses the performance of all 27
EU countries as well as performance of Croatia, Serbia, Turkey, Iceland, Norway and
Switzerland. The countries are compared on the basis of the Summary Innovation Index (SII).
This index summarizes 29 individual indicators and its value is from 0 to 1. The higher the
Summary innovation index is, the higher is innovation performance of the country. In
according to the value of SII all EU members were divided into the following four country
groups (European Commission, 2010):
Innovation leaders – Denmark, Finland, Germany, Sweden and United Kingdom.
Innovation followers – Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, France, Ireland, Luxembourg,
Netherlands and Slovenia.
Moderate innovators – Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, Malta, Poland,
Portugal, Slovakia and Spain.
Catching-up countries – Bulgaria, Latvia and Romania.
The methodology used for evaluation of innovation performance was changed in
2008 and this new methodology was used also for the last available evaluation in 2009 (e. g.
Pazour, 2009; Hollanders et al., 2008). It covered three main blocks that are (European
Commission, 2009):
Enablers – 9 indicators in two dimensions (Finance and support and Human resources),
Firm Activities – 11 indicators in three dimensions (Throughputs, Linkages &
entrepreneurship and Firm investment) and
Outputs – 9 indicators in two dimensions (Economic effects and Innovators).
Besides the Summary Innovation Index the indices for all the seven above-mentioned
dimensions have been calculated.
In this article the Czech Republic will be compared only with 13 selected countries.
The selected countries belong to the first three groups of countries: Innovation leaders
(Denmark (DK), Finland (FI), Germany (DE), Sweden (SE),United Kingdom (UK)),
Innovation followers (Austria (AT), Estonia (EE), France (FR), Netherlands (NL), Slovenia
(SI)) and countries that are similar to Czech Republic (CZ) – Moderate innovators (Italy (IT),
Portugal (PT) and Spain (ES)).
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