Comparative performance analysis of the national innovation systems in Europe

The effective operation of the national innovation system needs to determine the deficiencies in comparison with other countries and to design a policy accordingly. From this point of view, in our study, it is aimed to analyse the national innovation system performances of the countries in Europe comparatively.The efficiency of innovation systems with the Data Envelopment Method was examined based on the data of 35 European countries for the year 2020-2022. Innovation systems are analyzed within the two separate sub-processes, namely the production of knowledge and the commercialization of knowledge. Firstly, the efficiency of the innovation systems of the countries was measured and classified according to their performance, and then the potential improvement rates for the system elements were determined for the countries that were not efficient.Results on the efficiency measurement of systems revealed that the United Kingdom, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland are fully active in the knowledge production process, while Austria, Denmark, Estonia, Sweden, Southern Cyprus, Luxembourg and Malta are fully active in the knowledge commercialization process. In addition, countries are classified according to the efficiency in the production and commercialization of knowledge. Accordingly, 15 countries were among the "innovation leaders", including Turkey, and 13 countries were included in the "late innovators" category. These results showed that there is a significant divide between countries in Europe in terms of innovation performance.Findings regarding the improvement rates of innovation systems offered policy implications. In terms of the production process of knowledge, EU countries need to increase private R&D expenditures the most, and that there is a need for improvement in the number of doctoral graduates in non-EU countries, including Turkey. In terms of commercialization of information, countries in Europe need improvement regarding the input of the number of common scientific publications. The need for improvement has been identified in non-EU countries and Turkey.