New reports look at research and innovation challenges and developments across the EU

The European Commission's Research and Innovation Observatory (RIO) at the Joint Research Centre has published the second edition of the RIO country reports, which assess the evolution of national research and innovation systems and identify key challenges.

These country reports provide a wealth of knowledge by detailing the policy developments in the R&I area at national level, analysing the level of public and private funding for R&D, assessing the quality of the science base and the level of implementation of the European Research Area (ERA) priorities, describing the framework conditions for research and innovation (R&I) and the links between industry and academia.

Covering all the EU countries, their main aim is to feed into the EU policy process by providing input to the European Semester and to monitor progress of the European Research Area, although they do not imply nor prejudge policy positions by the Commission. It is also a tool to support policy learning in the Member States by providing yearly analysis of the national R&I systems.

According to the 2015 release, industry collaboration and commercialisation of public research results remain two of the major challenges for R&I systems in many EU countries. European R&I systems suffer also from relatively low innovativeness of business (SMEs in particular). Other findings show that countries ranked as innovation leaders in the Innovation Union scoreboard increasingly demand human resources in R&I activities while countries ranked as modest innovators continue efforts to build effective R&I governance and prioritise R&I spending.

The analysis of the research and development (R&D) budgets show that during the period 2010-2013 several EU countries have improved their structural balance, and some of them succeeded in preserving or even increasing their public expenditure in R&D. However, a large group of countries, many of them not facing urgent debt pressures, have substantially decreased them. This is the case, for instance, of Bulgaria, Finland and Romania. Detailed analysis is available in the chart 6 of the public finances growth friendly expenditure thematic fiche of the European Semester.

The RIO Country Reports are complemented with executive summaries that put forward main challenges of the respective research and innovation systems and list the main policy changes. The summaries are available in English and in the national languages.

Joint website of the Research and Innovation Observatory (RIO) and Horizon 2020 Policy Support Facility (PSF)

The RIO-PSF website, jointly developed by the Directorates-General Joint Research Centre (JRC) and Research and Innovation (RTD), is a reference and key source of information for European and national policy makers -as well as other stakeholders- in the field of R&I policy. It delivers analysis, insights, statistical data and best practices on designing, implementing and evaluating research and innovation policy at EU and national levels.

DG RTD's H2020 Policy Support Facility offers practical support to Member States and Associated Countries to design, implement and evaluate reforms that enhance the quality of their research and innovation investments, policies and systems. DG JRC's Research and Innovation Observatory monitors and analyses research and innovation developments at country and EU levels to support better policy making in Europe.

Image: The RIO Country Reports are complemented with executive summaries that put forward main challenges of the respective research and innovation systems and list the main policy changes.
© Niels Meyer, CC by 2.0