Irish companies are among the top three best countries for innovation in the European Union, according to new figures.
Close to 60 per cent of Irish companies recorded innovation activity between 2010 and 2012, a study from Eurostat shows. This places them third in term of innovation in the EU, behind Germany and Luxembourg at 66.9 per cent and 66.1 per cent respectively.
On the contrary, less than 30 per cent of enterprises had innovation activity in that period in Romania, Poland and Bulgaria, the lowest ranking countries in the EU.
According to Eurostat, innovation activities refer to product and process innovation as well as organisational and marketing innovation.
The proportion of EU enterprises consisting of 10 employees or more that reported innovation activity fell below 50 per cent from 2010 to 2012 to 48.9 per cent, the figures show. This compares to 51.5 per cent from 2006 and 2008 and a peak of 52.8 per cent recorded between 2008 and 2010.
The largest falls in the proportion of innovative enterprises between 2010 and 2012 were recorded in Cyprus, Germany, Romania and Spain. The biggest increases were in Malta, the Netherlands, Latvia and the UK.
Between 2010 and 2012, close to a third of innovation in EU enterprises related mainly to organisation, followed by marketing innovations (24.3 per cent), product innovations (23.7 per cent) and process innovations (21.4 per cent).
Ireland was ranked in second place, behind Luxembourg but ahead of Germany in terms of having the highest share of enterprises that carried out organisation and/or marketing innovations between 2010 and 2012.
Innovative enterprises in the European Union 2010 -2012
(% of enterprises)
Germany 66.9%
Luxembourg 66.1%
Ireland 58.7%
Italy 56.1%
Sweden 55.9%
Belgium 55.6%
Portugal 54.6%
Austria 54.4%
France 53.4%
Finland 52.6%
Greece 52.3%
Netherlands 51.4%
Denmark 51.1%
Malta 51.4%
UK 50.3%
EU 48.9%
Estonia 47.6%
Slovenia 46,5%
Czech Republic 43.9%
Cyprus 42.1%
Croatia 37.9%
Slovakia 34%
Spain 33.6%
Lithuania 32.9%
Hungary 32.5%
Latvia 30.4%
Bulgaria 27.4%
Poland 23%
Romania 20.7%
