Trends in innovation performance and innovation policy:: European union and Slovakia

The paper characterizes briefly the results of the European surveys for 2004 on innovation performance and innovation policy with a special view on the position of Slovakia. Slovakia ranks among the five EU-25 countries with the lowest innovation performance. It lags behind mainly in the size of R&D expenditures, in the share of tertiary educated population, in the innovation activity of SMEs and the patenting activity is also minimal. The essential reason of insufficient innovativeness of the Slovak economy results from the weak support for innovation activities on the side of economic policy. Since 2005 an eminent public interest in the given area has been declared, therefore a gradual improvement in innovation performance can be expected.