Innovation capacities and national cultures

One of the European Union’s key objectives is to be an economic area that remains at the cutting edge of innovation and moreover ensures a standard of living through innovation policies (European Council 2000). In order to implement that strategy, the European Council launched the Lisbon Strategy, ¹ subsequently revised in 2006, in particular with the purpose of increasing research investment to 3% of GDP. After ten years, the outcomes were, however, mixed (Figure 8.1): only two countries (Sweden and Finland) reached the 3% goal and only five other countries (Denmark, Austria, Germany, France and Belgium) were above the EU average. The EU average remained virtually the same for almost a decade, only rising from 1.85% to 1.90% (European Commission, 2010). A new strategy for the decade 2010–2020 was launched, called ‘Europe 2020’, with a strong focus on research and innovation. The new innovation framework does not really change the previous targets and maintains the 3% of EU GDP to be invested in R&D (European Commission 2017a).