THE IMPACT OF INNOVATION ON COMPETITIVENESS OF THE EUROPEAN UNION MEMBER STATES

Innovation is one of the most important aspects of knowledge-based economy. It is a catalyst for development and economic growth of Member States. Despite of European Union efforts in terms of cohesion policy, Member States are diversified in the area of economic development. Therefore, they have a different approach to innovation policy and innovation growth. Bearing in mind these discrepancies, it is reasonable to study and monitor this matter continuously. Thus, the key objective of this article is to measure innovation in the EU Member States. The work contains the characteristics of innovation and competitiveness. The statistical analysis was used as a research method for the implementation of the chosen objective. The article consists of two main parts, theoretical and empirical. In the first part, the concepts of innovativeness and competitiveness were defined. In the second one, the results of statistical analysis were presented. The data concerning 8 selected factors, which characterize 28 European Union Member States, was used to classify Member States into 4 groups in terms of level of innovativeness: best, good, weak, and the weakest countries. The analysis is based on Eurostat data. The reference year is 2015.