Innovation of the Polish Economy in comparison to European Union countries

Knowledge and innovation are fundamental drivers of development processes. This is affirmed by a reorientation of the European Union policies for 2014-2020, which consider a more dynamic construction of economy based on knowledge and innovation, a more effective use of pro-innovative resources, and the strengthening of innovation systems are as basic dimensions of economic activity. The purpose of this paper is to analyse and assess the level of Poland's innovation as compared to the European Union countries in 2011 and 2015. To assess innovation, expenditure on research and development (R&D) activity was employed, along with the employment levels in R&D and indices referring to the effects of innovation activities in the form of protection of intellectual and industrial property. As a result of the study, clusters of countries with the highest and lowest innovation level were identified. The study is supplemented by Ward's clustering method, which forms the basis for separation of similar countries with respect to an analysed phenomenon. The calculations were carried out with the use of Statistica 13 programme.