SLOVAKIA has been categorised as a ‘moderate innovator’ on the Innovation Union Scoreboard (IUS), a chart assessing the innovation performance of 28 European states in 2010, the TASR newswire reported.
Slovakia, which was in the same category in 2009, is accompanied by countries such as Croatia, the Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Italy. ‘Moderate innovators’ are ranked third out of four groups: below ‘innovation leaders’ and ‘innovation followers’ but ahead of ‘modest innovators'.
“The level of innovation in Slovakia is below the EU average. Slovakia’s rather strong side is human resources and output, while company investment in innovations and intellectual assets are its weaker spheres,” the report states, as quoted by TASR.
The report uses various data provided by Eurostat, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, and factors in 25 indicators such as the number of registered patents per capita, and public and company expenditure on research and development.
