Research and Development Indicators of EU28 Countries from Viewpoint of Super‑efficiency DEA Analysis

Research and development are important sources of economic growth and social welfare and play a key role in creating new knowledge, products and technological processes. In our paper we focused on the analysis and evaluation of research and innovation potential in the European Union countries in 2010 and 2015 using Data Envelopment Analysis. For the evaluation, seven indicators were selected, as starting point for the evaluation of research activities and the measurement of the innovation performance and of competitiveness of the individual countries. Input capital indicators were – R&D expenditure in the higher education sector and in the business enterprise sector as % of GDP. Input human labour indicators were total researchers (FTE), human resources in science and technology (HRST) as % of active population and employment in total service intensive sectors as % of total employment. Output indicators were the number of scientific publications and high‑tech export as % of total export. On basis of DEA super‑efficiency analyses results we can make following conclusions. The best group of five countries is characterized by efficient status in both analysed periods 2010 and 2015 (Bulgaria, Romania, Cyprus, Croatia and United Kingdom). The second group contains two countries Germany and Italy. This countries improved status from inefficient in 2010 to efficient in 2015. In the third group are five countries that worsened their status from efficient in 2010 to inefficient one in 2015: Portugal, Malta, Poland, Luxembourg and Netherlands. In last fourth group are all other EU28 countries that were inefficient in both analysed periods 2010 and 2015. In group of V4 countries situation is not optimistic. Poland worsened its status from efficient in 2010 to inefficient one in 2015 and three remaining countries – Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovakia stagnated in inefficient status in both periods. On the opposite there was not significant difference in super‑efficiencies in 2010 and in 2015 and in their differences between capitalist and post‑socialist EU28 countries.