Image: Grace Gay for Research Professional News
Joint Research Centre study concludes that EU regions should increase their support for research
Economic improvement in the EU has been found by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre to align with regional innovation levels.
Based on a study conducted by its researchers Anabela Marques Santos, Francesco Molica and Andrea Conte, the JRC, which provides evidence to support EU policy, said on 9 August that “regional disparities at the EU level have essentially decreased since 2000” and that “higher R&D expenditure at the regional level appears to be an important factor in reducing the economic gap among regions”.
“In other words, the study finds evidence that innovation and economic divides are interlinked,” it said.
“The higher the R&D expenditure per capita in one year, the higher the reduction in regional disparities in the following year,” the authors said in their study report.
They stressed that at this stage of research into the issue, the numbers are simply a correlation and the relationship “does not imply causation”.
Nonetheless, they concluded that “improving the innovation capacity of European regions is critical for their long-term prospects” and recommended that regional development policies should therefore increase their focus on supporting research and innovation.