Archive:Innovation statistics

Data from January 2013. Most recent data: Further Eurostat information, Main tables and Database. Planned article update: January 2015.

This article deals with the innovativeness of the enterprises in the European Union (EU). It reports the state of innovation and focuses on some features and key aspects of the development of innovations implemented by the enterprises. Innovation forms part of the Europe 2020 strategy playing an important role in creating job opportunities, making enterprises more competitive in the global market, improving the quality of life or contributing to a more sustainable growth. Encouraging innovation and stimulating this economic driver is one of the main objectives of the European policies. The Community Innovation Survey provides statistics broken down by countries, types of innovators, economic activities and size classes. The survey is currently carried out every two years across the European Union, some EFTA countries and EU candidate countries.

Figure 1: Proportion of innovative enterprises, 2008–10 (1)
(% of all enterprises) - Source: Eurostat (inn_cis7_type)

Figure 2: Proportion of innovative enterprises by type of innovation, 2008–10 (1)
(% of innovative enterprises) - Source: Eurostat (inn_cis7_type)

Table 1: Proportion of product and/or process innovative enterprises engaged in any type of cooperation by size class, 2008–10
(% of all product and/or process innovative enterprises) - Source: Eurostat (inn_cis7_coop)

Table 2: Proportion of marketing innovative enterprises by implementation type, 2008–10 - Source: Eurostat (inn_cis7_mktype)

Table 3: Proportion of innovative enterprises by type of methods for stimulating creativity considered highly successful, 2008–10 (1)
(% of innovative enterprises) - Source: Eurostat (inn_cis7_mktype)

Main statistical findings

Extent of innovation

During the period 2010-12, almost half of the enterprises in the European Union (EU-28) have reported innovation activity (48.9 %). Compared with the period 2008-10, the share of innovative enterprises has decreased by 3.9 points of percentages. Among the EU Member States, the highest shares of innovative enterprises during the period 2010–12 (see Figure 1) have been observed in Germany (66.9 % of all enterprises), Luxembourg (66.1 %), Ireland (58.7 %) and Italy (56.1 %). The lowest shares were recorded in Bulgaria (27.4 %), Poland (23.0 %) and Romania (20.7 %). Table 1 shows the percentages of enterprises by types of innovation implemented between 2010 and 2012: product, process, organisation and marketing. At the European level, more than one quarter (27.5 %) of the enterprises reported organisation innovation. Marketing innovation ranks second with an implementation in 24.3 % of all enterprises. Product innovation that encompasses new or significantly improved goods or services has been introduced in 23.7 % of the enterprises. Relatively fewer enterprises (21.4 %) have implemented process innovations. It is important to note that enterprises could have introduced innovations in more than one single area.

At the national level, countries with higher shares of innovative enterprises in one type of innovation present also, in general, high shares for the other types of innovation. This link is particularly true between the share of product and the share of process innovative enterprises. Regarding the specific types of innovation, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and Sweden have the highest share of product innovative enterprises with respectively 35.8 %, 31.9 %, 31.5 % and 31.5 % of the total of the enterprises. Proportionally, more enterprises reported process innovation in Portugal (33.5 %), Luxembourg (32.8 %) and Belgium (31.1 %). As regards the introduction of a new organisational method, enterprises in Luxembourg, Austria and Malta have proportionally more innovate in the organisation sphere than in other countries (respectively 46.8 %, 36.4 % and 34.7 % of the total of the enterprises) by introducing new practices or methods for organising procedures, external relations or work responsibilities and decision making. As to marketing innovation, highest share of enterprises have been observed in Greece (36.8 %), Ireland (35.7 %) and Germany (34.4 %).

Process innovation

Process innovation was present in slightly more than one in five enterprises (21.4 %) across the EU-28. Based on the available data (therefore excluding the United Kingdom), the most common novelty or improvement among EU process innovators was related to the methods of manufacturing or producing goods and services. Germany, France, Latvia and Lithuania were the leaders in this specific type of process innovation. More than 7 in 10 process innovative enterprises in those countries reported such type of process innovation. New or significantly improved supporting activities for processes, such as maintenance systems or operations for purchasing, accounting, or computing implemented were implemented in 58.9 % of the process innovative enterprises at the European level. Less common implementation in the process innovation context was related to new or significantly improved logistics, delivery or distribution methods for inputs, goods or services (only 34.9 % of the EU-28 process innovative enterprises have introduced this specific type of innovation).

Sources of information

Enterprises could be encouraged to innovate by their operational environment in order to meet, for instance, the needs or requirements of their customers or suppliers. However, enterprises could also decide on their own initiative to undertake innovation activities in the framework of strategies development. In this case, information coming from other stakeholders may also be interested. Moreover, a concept widely common in discussion on innovation is the "open innovation". Open innovation is the use of internal and other companies' ideas to develop businesses opportunities. It is considered as "an important component of the foreseen European Innovation System, where all stakeholders need to be involved and create seamless interaction and mash-up for ideas in innovation ecosystems"

In the CIS 2012 context, 22 countries have provided Eurostat with data on sources of information used by product and/or process innovative enterprises. The median percentages by types of sources are presented in Figure 2 according to the enterprises consideration as regards each type of sources: "Highly important" / "Not considered highly important" and "Not used". Based on the collected data, the share of product and/or process innovative enterprises using information within the enterprise and the enterprise group is, half of the countries, higher than 87.7 % and higher than 51.7 % for the share of enterprises considering this source as highly important. Figure 5 shows that more than 95 % of product and/or process innovative enterprises in Cyprus, Slovenia and Norway use information within the enterprise and the enterprise group. Poland, Turkey and Italy show the lowest shares with less than 75 % of their enterprises using this type of information source. The categories "information from suppliers of equipment, materials, components or software" and "information from clients or customers from the private sector" take the second and third place: half of countries have respectively more than 81.4 % and 78.1 % of their innovative enterprises that use this kind of sources of information to innovate with respect to their new or significantly improved product and process. Information from clients from the public sectors and information from universities or high research institutions are found toward the bottom of the ranking. In more than half of the countries, less than one product and/or process innovative enterprise in 2 (48.2 %) use information from clients from the public sector. The share of innovative enterprises using information from universities or other higher education institutes is less than 35.7 % in more than half of the countries. However, all the countries don't show the same percentages. More than 60 % of the product and/or process innovative enterprises in Austria, Norway and Finland report the use of information from universities or other higher education institutes.

Methods for maintaining or increasing the competitiveness

Data on methods for maintaining or increasing the competitiveness in the enterprises have been provided by 21 EU Member States in the CIS 2012 data collection. Based on the compiled data, more than 6 in 10 (61.9 %) product and/or process innovative enterprises attempted taking lead time advantage over the competitors to improve their competiveness, in other words, reducing the delay between the initiation and the implementation of their innovations. Slightly more than one quarter (28.5 %) of the enterprises considered this method as highly important. To maintain or increase their competitiveness, 60.6 % of the product and/ process innovative enterprises have also used the complexity of goods or services. Less than half of them (20.4 %) considered this method highly important. These two methods are closely followed by the secrecy that was used by half of these innovative enterprises (51.2 %). Patents, copyrights and design registration seem to be less used by the product and/or process innovative enterprises and few enterprises considered these three respective methods as highly important. However, it should be noticed that the size of the enterprises and the sector of activity produce significant differences in the results. The larger the size of the innovative enterprises is, for example, the more intensively they apply for patents.

Innovative and non-innovative enterprises' goals and strategies

Figure 7 presents the goals considered to be highly important respectively by the innovative and the non-innovative enterprises in 20 EU Member States for which the data are available. An increase in the turnover was considered highly important by 60.0 % of the innovative enterprises, followed by a decrease in the costs (55 %) and an increase in the profit margins (50.8 %). An increase in the market share has been reported as a highly important goal by 41.0 % of the innovative enterprises. Regarding the non-innovative enterprises, the ranking is quite similar as for the innovative enterprises. However, the shares of non-innovative enterprises reporting an increase in the turnover (48.3 %) and a decrease in the costs (48.4 %) as highly important goals are almost equal with a minor difference of 0.1 point of percentage.

To reach these goals, surveyed enterprises were invited to report their respective strategies according to a certain level of importance. The results shown in Figure 8 are related to the 19 EU Member States having provided the data on this item. The intensification or the improvement of the marketing of goods or services is the most important strategy reported by both innovative and non-innovative enterprises (54.8 % and 46.9 respectively). This strategy is followed by the 2 strategies including the development of new markets within and outside Europe which have been considered highly important by more or less one enterprise in 4 innovative and non-innovative enterprises.

Data sources and availability

The Community innovation survey (CIS) collects information about product and process innovation, as well as organisational and marketing innovation. The legal basis for collecting these statistics is Regulation 0995/2012] implementing Decision 1608/2003/EC concerning the production and development of Community statistics on innovation. Innovations are based on the implementation of a new or significantly improved product (good or service) or process, a new marketing method, or a new organisational method in business practices, workplace organisation or external relations.

Such innovations may be developed by the innovating enterprise itself, together with other enterprises, by another enterprise or by adapting or modifying processes originally developed by other enterprises or institutions. The simple resale of new goods and services purchased from other enterprises is not considered innovation. Innovations should also at least be new to the enterprise concerned. In some cases, innovative enterprises may cooperate with other parties and the cooperation partners may be located in other countries or on other continents. Information collected within the CIS allows for an analysis of cooperation partners for national partners, partners from other European countries, the United States, China or India, and other countries.

A CIS 2010 ad hoc module focused on in-house and external skills available in enterprises and methods for stimulating new ideas or creativity. The results highlight the differences between innovative and non-innovative enterprises. Information was collected for enterprises that resort to external resources to obtain specific knowledge, or enterprises that only rely on internal capacities in fields such as multimedia, web design, market research, mathematics or engineering. The data also provide insight into which methods were considered successful by enterprises for stimulating creativity: brainstorming sessions, multidisciplinary or cross-functional work teams, training, job rotation or financial and non-financial incentives for employees.

Context

Eurostat has been collecting innovation statistics for many years to meet the needs of policymakers and the scientific community. The statistics provided are closely linked to the EU’s policy activities. Indicators on innovation are a tool for decision making and also help to assess initiatives such as the Innovation Union or the European Research Area (ERA) within the context of the Europe 2020 strategy (the EU's growth strategy). Research and innovation is one of five key targets covered by the strategy; the other four are employment, education, social inclusion and poverty reduction, and climate/energy.

Seven ‘flagship initiatives’ provide a framework to support the Europe 2020 priorities — they are in the areas of innovation, the digital economy, employment, youth, industrial policy, poverty, and resource efficiency.

The Innovation Union has three objectives, namely, to:

make Europe into a world-class science performer;
remove obstacles to innovation — such as expensive patenting, market fragmentation, slow standard-setting and skills shortages — that currently prevent ideas getting quickly to market; and
revolutionise the way public and private sectors work together, not least through innovation partnerships between the European institutions, national and regional authorities and business.

In this context, the Innovation Union includes over thirty action points. The partnership on active and healthy ageing provides an illustration of one of these action points, with the target to ‘add an average of two years of healthy life for everyone in Europe’. Another example of an action point targets stimulating innovation in Europe by enhancing access to finance for innovative companies.

The Innovation Union Scoreboard(IUS) is a tool for assessing innovation performance in EU Member States and highlights the relative strengths and weaknesses of their research and innovation systems; it also helps monitor implementation of the Innovation Union. The IUS is based on three types of indicators and eight innovation dimensions. CIS provides six of the 25 indicators available in the scoreboard. Countries are grouped into four categories: innovation leaders, innovation followers, moderate innovators and modest innovators.

Further Eurostat information

Publications

Science, technology and Innovation in Europe - Pocketbook, 2012 edition

Main tables

Science and technology, see:

Community innovation survey (t_inn)

Turnover from innovation (tsdec340)

Database

Science and technology, see:

Community innovation survey (inn)

Results of the first community innovation light survey - CIS light (inn_cisl)

Results of the second community innovation survey (CIS2) (inn_cis2)

Results of the third community innovation survey (CIS3) (inn_cis3)

Results of the fourth community innovation survey (CIS4) (inn_cis4)

Results of the community innovation survey 2006 (CIS2006) (inn_cis5)

Results of the community innovation survey 2008 (CIS2008) (inn_cis6)

Results of the community innovation survey 2010 (CIS2010) (inn_cis7)

Results of the community innovation survey 2010 (CIS2012) (inn_cis8)

External links