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The Minister for Research and Innovation, Seán Sherlock TD, welcomed the publication today (Friday) of a new EU innovation indicator which classifies Ireland in the highest category of “top performers”.

Minister Sherlock said “Ireland’s performance under the new "Indicator of Innovation Output" is highly significant as it measures the extent to which ideas from innovative sectors are able to reach the market, providing better jobs and making Europe more competitive.”

“This is a very positive indication of improvement in Ireland’s competitiveness in key areas of the economy. The top performers in the EU owe their ranking to doing well on several or all of the following factors: an economy with a high share of knowledge-intensive sectors, fast-growing innovative firms, high levels of patenting and competitive exports. “the Minister added.

The novelty of the new indicator is that it focuses on innovation output. The new indicator of innovation output was developed at the request of the European Council to benchmark national innovation policies and monitor the EU's performance against its main trading partners. Sweden, Germany, Ireland and Luxembourg are the EU Member States getting the most out of innovation according to the new indicator. They are classified in the highest category of “top performers”.

Minister Sherlock pointed out that the indicator was developed using state-of-the-art statistical analyses, and international quality standards by Eurostat, the OECD and the IMF were taken as a reference when constructing the indicator. “This is testament from an authoritative source that we are on the right track to recovery and our innovation performance is playing a major role “the Minister concluded.