Innovation potential of Polish cities

Innovation has been a buzz-word in social and economic sciences for over two decades. Nevertheless, the concept of the innovation is one of the most debatable. There are many attempts to create new and better indicators of innovativeness. One of the most known is the European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS), developed by the European Commission and based on the Oslo Manual methodology. The innovation indicators which are used in EIS are assigned to five dimensions and grouped in two main themes: inputs and outputs. Due to the problem of data source, it is hard to analyze output indicators in Poland, especially for cities. It is easier to collect data for the input indicator, which can be called innovation potential. This article presents the aggregate indicator of innovation potential (for years 2000, 2004, 2008) in the biggest cities in Poland, based on five indicators. The analysis shows, apart from interesting changes in the ranking of cities, that the gap between metropolises and other cities is growing.