The conditions and change tendencies of the innovativeness of the Polish economy against the background of selected European countries

Abstract

The paper identifies the level of innovativeness of the Polish economy against the background of selected European countries and determines the conditions and change tendencies in this respect. It is of particular importance to designate the SII components that are of high significance to determine the levels of innovativeness. A research hypothesis was posited as well: The causes of low innovativeness in Poland are varied and multidimensional. More spending on research and development should be the starting point for its improvement.The theoretical section follows a thorough review of leading specialist literature, while the empirical part uses the Summary Innovation Index (SII), published in the European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS) report. It is used to measure the innovativeness of European countries. Additionally, some selected methods of numerical data analysis were used in order to verify the research hypothesis.The fostering of R&D will be of paramount importance to the future development of Poland; however, given the huge differences in research and development spending by enterprises in the innovation leaders, Poland’s position will not improve soon.National authorities can use the results as guidelines on the Polish economy’s innovativeness growth factors. They also will give information what actions need to be taken to improve the situation.The cognitive value of the paper consists in studying the causes of the innovativeness distance of the Polish economy with reference to selected, not all countries (the latter comparison is the object of a prevailing majority of the relevant literature). This approach will provide a clearer evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of Poland’s innovation system. It will allow for giving some recommendations for innovativeness level improvement.