Convergence in the Innovative Performance of the European Union Countries

The aim of this work is to study whether a process of convergence in innovation in the European countries has occurred or not, by analysing the relative changes in the innovative position of the European countries during the period 2002–2006. Special attention is paid to the relative changes that have occurred in the recently acceded countries and to the poorest countries of the EU-15. The data used in this research come from the fourth and fifth wave of the Community Innovation Survey elaborated by EUROSTAT and collected in different Member States of the European Union. The statistical technique used is the multiple factorial analysis. The study has been carried out on two different sets of firms. On the one hand, it has considered all manufacturing firms (innovative and non-innovative firms) and, on the other, only the innovative manufacturing firms. The results show a moderate convergence process in innovation in the manufacturing as a whole, but not in the innovative firms.