Ireland third in the EU for innovative enterprises
Ireland has the third highest proportion of innovative enterprises in the EU, new Eurostat figures reveal.
According to Eurostat, 48.9pc of enterprises of 10 employees or more in the EU reported innovation activity between 2010 and 2012.
In Ireland, the figure rises to 58.7pc, placing it third behind Germany (66.9pc) and Luxembourg (66.1pc).
The proportion of innovative enterprises in the EU28 dropped in 2010-2012 compared with both 2006-2008 (51.5pc innovative enterprises) and the peak recorded in 2008-2010 (52.8pc). This pattern was observed in most member states, including Ireland (56.5pc in 2006-2008; 59.5pc in 2008-2010).
Innovation activities refer to product and process innovation as well as organisational and marketing innovation.
Between 2010 and 2012, innovation in EU enterprises related mainly to organisation (27.5pc of all enterprises), followed by marketing innovations (24.3pc), product innovations (23.7pc) and process innovations (21.4pc).
In 2010-2012, enterprises reporting organisation and/or marketing innovations were slightly dominant (37.1pc) in the EU, compared with 36.0pc of innovative enterprises for products and processes.
For organisation and/or marketing innovations, the highest shares of enterprises that had carried out these activities between 2010 and 2012 were recorded in Luxembourg (53.5pc), Ireland (50.8pc), Germany (47.6pc), Austria (46.1pc), Greece (45.4pc) and Italy (45.3pc).
The highest proportion of product and/or process innovative enterprises in 2010-2012 was registered by far in Germany (55.0pc of enterprises), followed by Luxembourg (48.5pc), Belgium (46.5pc), Sweden (45.2pc) Finland (44.6pc), the Netherlands (44.5pc) and Ireland (42.3pc).
