Comparison of innovation indicators: in European union countries and turkey

Abstract

Since the I980s the concept of the national innovation system (NIS) has been gaining popularity as a core conceptual framework for analysing technological change, which is considered to be an indispensable foundation of the long-term economic development of a nation. Countries can share similar NIS due to shared historical development or comparable education systems, industrial structures, governance structures and other factors that influence innovative capabilities. An understanding of which countries share similar NIS structures can aid the search for improved innovation policy. For instance, the innovation policies of a country with a similar NIS could be more readily applicable to the national circumstances of a poor innovative performer than the policies of a country with a very different NIS (European Trend Chart on Innovation, 2005). In this paper Cluster Analysis is used to identify the European Union countries and Turkey that share similar innovation systems. The purpose of cluster analysis is to response to the general question facing researchers in many areas of inquiry is how to organize observed data in to meaningful structures. Cluster analysis amalgamates data objects into constituents groups. The cluster analysis can assign to the same group countries with relatively different performance. Not all countries perform on the same level in each of these dimensions and some countries may even prove to be especially weak in one or several dimensions of innovation.