RATING OF INNOVATION PERFORMANCE AND COMPETITIVENESS OF THE VISEGRAD FOUR IN COMPARISON WITH THE EU MEMBER STATES

The importance of innovation activities consists especially in the development of future competitiveness and improvement of efficiency of economy in given country. The goal of our paper is to provide a general overview of innovation development in the Visegrad Four countries (Slovak Republic, Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary) when compared to the member states of the European Union (EU-28). The introductory part of the paper deals with the basic indicator of measurement of the innovation performance and competitiveness within the European Union. The analytical part focuses on the rating of innovation performance of the Visegrad Four countries and their competitiveness based on an eight-dimensional classification of the main aspects, or categories of the innovation process. The second part of our research will subsequently deal with the global index of competitiveness of individual countries when compared to the EU.