Regional innovation performance and structural conditions in Central and Eastern Europe: embracing the broad-based innovation concept

Abstract

Motivation: There is plenty of evidence suggesting that the (regional) innovation systems in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) are in their early beginnings and that this poses huge challenges to the implementation of the smart specialization agendas and to the efficient use of the European structural and investment funds in these countries. Our assumption is that structural differences explain to a large extent the differences in innovation performance between the CEE and non-CEE regions and that the future growth trajectories of the CEE regions should more specifically embrace the broad-based innovation concept.Aim: Our study attempts to test whether there are statistically significant differences between the CEE and non-CEE regions in each component of the European Regional Innovation Scoreboard and whether such differences can be explained by the variations in structural conditions. To this purpose, we use a discriminant factor analysis and test the correlations between the discriminant function and various structural indicators.

The Role of Non-R&D Expenditures in Promoting Innovation in Europe

“…The authors use data from German SMEs. [14] consider that while the differences in terms of technological innovation between Eastern European countries and other European countries are significant, there are some variables such as non-R&D Innovation Expenditures, for which the same areas converge. [15] consider the role of non-R&D activities in developing innovative performance in a set of 329 Chinese small and medium-sized enterprises operating in the manufacturing sector.…”