The 2008 European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS) published today shows the EU making substantial progress in its innovation performance preceding the financial crisis. The relative innovation gap with the US and Japan was reduced, in particular amid strong progress by many new Member States such as Cyprus, Romania and Bulgaria. Across the EU, particular progress was made in human resources and availability of finance for innovation. However, innovative investments by businesses are still relatively weak especially if compared to the US and Japan. In parallel to this report, the 2008 Science, Technology and Competitiveness report provides a more in-depth analysis of trends in public and business R&D, technological performance and progress in implementing the European Research Area
The report shows that European countries form four groupings at different levels of performance, and that virtually all countries have improved their performance although the rate of progress varies:
Switzerland, Sweden, Finland, Germany, Denmark and the UK are Innovation leaders , with innovation performance well above the EU average. Of these countries, Switzerland and Germany are improving their performance fastest.
Austria, Ireland, Luxembourg, Belgium, France and the Netherlands are Innovation followers, with performance above the EU average. Ireland's performance has been increasing fastest within this group, followed by Austria.
Cyprus, Iceland, Estonia, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Norway, Spain, Portugal, Greece and Italy are the Moderate innovators , with innovation performance below the EU average. The trend in Cyprus' innovation performance is well above the average for this group, followed by Portugal.
Malta, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, Lithuania, Croatia, Romania, Latvia, Bulgaria and Turkey are the Catching-up countries with innovation performance well below the EU average. Most of these countries have been catching up. Bulgaria and Romania have been improving their performance the fastest.

See: INNO-Metrics