Boosting Innovation Driven Competitiveness in the European Union

Taking into consideration the profound digital and societal transformations, the competitiveness of the EU Member States and the prosperity of their citizens depend on the ability of their economies to provide value added products, services and business models based on innovation. The innovation performance of the European Union has improved but the progress recorded is quite at a low speed. The present economic approaches should focus more on new models of human-centric economic progress aimed at sustainable welfare for the citizens. The current paper aims to present the state-of-the-art of competitiveness and innovation performance in the EU Member States. The paper presents the correlations between the EU Member States concerning the global competitiveness and innovation performance, as the distinction between developed or developing states is less relevant than the distinction between high innovative and less innovative countries. The paper concludes that a sustainable economic progress needs creativity, innovation of all stakeholders and a genuine collaborative approach. The research methodology comprises bibliographic syntheses, socio-innovative empirical researches.