ABSTRACT
This chapter aims at comparing innovation performance of selected European countries, focusing on Germany and Sweden representing European leaders, and Poland, representing EU emerging economies. The indicators that measure determinants of their innovative capacity are benchmarked against the average values for the EU as a whole. The analysis confirms that Poland has initiated the catching up process towards the European innovation leaders. The innovation gaps dividing Poland from Sweden and Germany are relatively smaller for external factors of innovative capacity than for internal ones.
The second part of the chapter focuses on regional dimension of innovation, i.e. regional innovation differentials among European regions, with focus on German, Swedish and Polish NUTS 2 areas. The methods used in examining the innovation divide between the EU regions include the analysis of σ-convergence processes at the regional level, measured by standard deviation (SD) and coefficient of variation (CV) of the Regional Innovation Index (RII). Another way of investigating regional innovation disparities that was followed in this chapter is based on the analysis of single innovation indicators, which entails examining a particular facet of regional innovation. The evaluation of the regional dimension of innovation performance in selected European countries, Germany, Sweden and Poland, is based on the principal component analysis. In addition, the development of clusters and cluster policy in these countries is analysed.
