INTERNATIONAL COMPETITIVENESS
IN R&D AND INNOVATION
Ádám Török
Secretary General, Hungarian Academy
of Sciences
Why is innovation important to the
competitive performance of the economy?
• „middle income trap”
• Continuous and significant FDI inflows, but no in-
depth structural change in industry („upgrading”
missing)
• Strengthen the National Innovation System (NIS)
• Connection between NIS and firms
The Global Competitiveness Index 2014-2015 (WEF)
Source: World Economic Forum, 2014.
International competitiveness in innovation
• Research and development (R&D) - innovation
• Krugman (1994) – against the idea of perceiving
competitiveness at the macro level
• The Krugman-debate: is international trade a cooperative or a non-
cooperative game?
• Supply-side and demand-side approaches
• Product competitiveness – competitiveness of R&D
• Scientific excellence
• Academic performance
• Success in generating funding
R&D and Innovation in the European
Union
• Measure the international competitiveness of R&D and
innovation – GERD/GDP – BERD/GDP
• Lisbon Agenda: 3% (2010: 1,9%) – caveats:
• Rapidly deteriorating fiscal situation
• Economic slowdown
• EU2020: 3% (Hungary: 1,8% - 2020)
• New methods of measurement?
• European Innovation Scoreboard
• Elements of the synthetic indicators of innovation performance
• Good proxy of a competitiveness ranking
European Innovation Scoreboard (2014)
Source: Innovation Union Scoreboard, 2015.
GERD as a percentage of GDP (2013, %)
Source: OECD MSTI, 2015.
GERD as a percentage of GDP (2000-2013, %)
Source: OECD MSTI, 2015.
BERD as a percentage of GDP (2013, %)
Source: OECD MSTI, 2015.
BERD as a percentage of GDP (2000-2013, %)
Source: OECD MSTI, 2015.
European Paradox
• „European Paradox”
• the EU lag behind the US (plus South Korea and Japan) in
terms of R&D and innovation
• EU spends relatively much on science and R&D, but it only has
a limited effect on increasing competitiveness – output appears
more in publications than in patents
• GERD/GDP varied between 0,39% (Romania)
and 3,31% (Finland) (2013)
• Calderini et al. (2007) – patenting and
publishing results are often alternatives to each
other
Number of Citable Documents (articles, reviews and
conference papers) (2013)
Source: Scimago, 2015.
Total patent applications (direct and PCT
nationat phase entries) - (2000-2013)
Source: WIPO, http://ipstats.wipo.int/ipstatv2/ipstableval, 2015.
Total patent applications (direct and PCT
nationat phase entries) - CEECs (2000-2013)
Source: WIPO, http://ipstats.wipo.int/ipstatv2/ipstableval, 2015.
Reasons Underlying the Lag
• Strong US dominance in international higher education
• Ranking lists of universities (ARWU, THES, QS) – a
complex problem of competitiveness analysis
1. Johns Hopkins University (2013: $2 168 568 000),
2. University of Michigan (2013: $1 375 117 000),
….
7. Harvard (2013: $1 012 766 000)
• English as a lingua franca
• US – one national market of scientific output
• Institutional differences
10 years of the Hungarian innovation
system
• State institutions – various sectorial interest
groups or organizations, corporate actors
• Hungarian Academy of Sciences
• New or innovate R&D policies
• New application systems (e.g. Lendület Program)
• Specific form of „European Paradox”
• BERD/GDP – improved
• Certain elements of R&D and Innovation
institutions were modernized.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR KIND
ATTENTION!