INE participates in the METRIC Project and as a part of this project it has examined the innovation potential of the European regions in terms of transportation industry. Data from the Eurostat were used. This map shows the result regarding the spending of governments for public Research and Development (R&D), which is a basic part of innovation. This indicator “standardized share of government R&D spending per group of regios” builds a score, which allows a ranking of the regions. The higher the score, the higher the ranking of the region in the indicator. Regions were classified in three categories: “more developed regions” (>90% of European GDP average), “transition regions” (90-75% of European GDP average) and “less developed regions” (<75% of European GDP average) using the classification of the European Cohesion Fund.
Particularly high levels of innovation are reported in Austria, southern Germany and the regions between Nantes and Paris. Also of interest are Ireland, Greater rom and Helsinki. Eastern Europe is rather below average in this category.
