Assessing the European association between digitalization and innovation

Abstract

There is an intrinsic relationship between innovation and digitalization, marked by the specific and structural socioeconomic characteristics of our regions and countries. These characteristics explain the territory heterogeneity and determine in many cases specific paths for the next digital transformations in the EU.

But there are some issues countries cannot ignore: are all these economical efforts around innovation well addressed to foster digital transformation? To what extent a country or a region offers a different behavior across this intime relationship between digitalization and innovation?

Innovation is a complex concept built by a multitude of interacting aspects that do not necessarily work synergistically: a framework of conditions, innovation activities, investment, and economics impacts. The consequential results of cross-cutting drivers, such as digitalization, are often difficult to assess, as the achievement of certain targets may also inadvertently hinder progress towards others. Our study describes a comprehensive and systematic European country-based analysis of statistical associations between both, digitalization and innovation indicators operating at several different levels to understand better these apparent contradictions.