Italy gains "F" in Innovation

In a period of crisis and great economic and productive transformations, in Italy innovation is not a priority. This fact is confirmed by the F Italy has obtained in Innovation in the recent document "2008 EUROPEAN INNOVATION SCOREBOARD" : this is a report on the assessment of innovation performance across European countries based on the most recent statistics prepared by PRO INNO Europe.

PRO INNO Europe is a new initiative of Directorate General Enterprise and Industry which aims to become the focal point for innovation policy analysis, learning and development in Europe.

From this report it emerges that Europe has achieved substantial improvements in terms of creation and diffusion of innovation above all in comparison with USA and Japan. But when passing to the analyses in details, this report provides some out-of-tune notes. Italy in fact gains a F and, I've got to admit, it is not surprising.

Italy is lagging behind in comparison with other European countries according to the main innovation indicators above all for:

• inadequate education and technical-scientific training systems
• scarce private and public investments in R&D
• few patents' applications and registrations
  
• lack of coordination
• excessive learning-by-doing
  

In general it emerges that, notwithstanding the usual political statements, Italy has no trust in innovation confirmed by the fact that Italy invests just less than 1.5% GDP in innovation, education and research while the average european level is 2.7%. This scarce consideration and the lack of a meritocratic culture cause also the cronic brain drain Italy is suffering (some surveys indicate the number of 5000 units/year). Italy lacks a real policy and strategy for innovation diffusion and technology transfer: also an effective and efficient evaluation system for scientific results and to direct financial resources is completely lacking as well. Innovation and research policies in Italy are thus scarcely credible...

On these premises, it seems very diffucult to foresee a recovery of the italian economy in terms of competitiveness with a continuing erosion of those potential boundles of human and productive resources.

Download the Report for Italy (english text) here
The country pages (39 countries) with the links for the national report are at this link.