The European Commission is looking for input from businesses to review an Innovation Scoreboard being prepared for September. This will be used to guide EU policy on enterprise and improve the climate for innovation in Europe.
The Innovation Scoreboard will assess the trends in EU countries using statistical data from 17 indicators. It will concentrate on four areas: human resources; knowledge creation; transmission and application of new knowledge; and the output and markets of innovation finance.
This benchmarking effort is intended to help the EU to close the gap with the USA and Japan in terms of innovation performance. The Lisbon European Council in March 2000 set the target of turning the EU into "the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world" by 2010.
The Innovation Scoreboard will be updated annually, and the Commission plans to invite Member States to review the results with business, professional associations, trade unions and academics. A provisional version was published in September last year.
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