Innovation in sustainable development: an investigation of the EU context using 2030 agenda indicators

In the literature of field innovations, it has always been presented as the most important factor to achieve both the economic growth and the employment growth. Supporting innovations is also one of the aims of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (Goal 9. Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialisation and foster innovation). The measurement of the innovation level of world economies has been of interest for several years for both economic theoreticians and practitioners. However, the real innovation level of world economies can be evaluated on the basis of a much more limited set of diagnostic features available in official statistics. That is why the main objective of the work is to assess the level of innovation of the European Union Member States based on the composite index which was proposed by authors using variables indicated in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development strategy. The following specific objectives have been formulated as part of the main objective: (i) comparing the level of innovation of EU Member States based on the results of the ranking constructed by the authors; (ii) simplifying the tools for assessing activities undertaken under the 2030 Agenda strategy; (iii) building a tool that will allow for a long-term assessment of the effectiveness of measures to strengthen innovation within the framework of the sustainable development policy indicated in the 2030 Agenda; (iv) comparison of the results of the conducted research with the Summary Innovation Index (SII) published in the European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS), which in the literature on the subject is one of the most frequently used rankings for assessing the level of innovation in European countries. The comparative analysis carried out here is intended to highlight that the level of innovation of European Union member states can be described equally well on the basis of a limited set of diagnostic features. The taxonomic measure of development based on the Weber median vector was used in the paper to assess the innovation level of the EU Member States. The research was conducted based on the indicators applied by Eurostat to monitor the implementation of Goal 9 of the 2030 Agenda. The applied method and the results obtained can be used in subsequent years to examine the direction of changes observed also from the point of view of the particular EU Member States in the area of the application of innovations for the implementation of sustainable development policy.