The role of national and regional innovation policies, barriers and challenges in leveraging innovation in the new European Union member states

The European Union (EU) programme Horizon 2020 is investing 79 billion EUR in implementing the ‘Innovation Union’ over the period 2014 to 2020. However, when comparing the longer term EU15 member states to the more recent EU13 members, there are notable differences in the distribution of research and development and innovation funding, and research leadership roles, within the EU. Since the reasons behind this unequal distribution are poorly understood, the research reported here attempts to identify barriers to participation in European Research Area programmes for this group of countries. Specifically, it draws upon empirical findings from an EU Framework Seven (FP7) project. In addition to analysis of available data relating to the research performance, economy and society of each EU13 state, 39 policy dialogues engaging over 1,100 stakeholders has been undertaken. This extensive programme of research identified three categories of barriers impeding engagement of the EU13 research community with the EU’s Research and Development and Innovation system.