Page 9 - COMPASS - COMPETITIVENESS REPORT 2022 - COUNCIL OF COMPETITIVENESS IN GREECE

“COMPASS” REPORT 2022 – COUNCIL ON COMPETITIVENESS OF GREECE 7

GREECE’S POSITION
IN INNOVATION

According to the Pissarides Committee report, the Greek economy’s main goal in the coming years must be to
systematically increase its productivity and extroversion and to establish stronger, closer links between production
and technology and innovation. Monitoring the country’s macroeconomic performance as well as its performance
on key innovation indicators yields pertinent insights.

R&D expenditure as a percentage of GDP may have more than doubled in the last decade, but it remains below
the European average (1.5% compared to 2.3% in the EU-27 in 2020), while employment in medium- and high-
tech manufacturing (and in knowledge intensive services) stands at 1.6% of total employment in Greece, com-
pared to an EU average of 6.1%, in 2021. As a result, there remains room for improvement in terms of the tech
content of the country’s exports, as high-tech exports account for a mere 4.8% of Greek exports, compared to an
average of 17.7% in the EU-27.

Graph 1. R&D Expenditure as a percentage of GDP
(Source: Eurostat)

In addition to macroeconomic data, many countries have adopted and use international indices for monitoring
innovation performance and assessing the impact of their innovation policies. These indices make it possible to
determine rankings, whereby countries can be grouped together; for example, countries with better than expect-
ed performance, countries that maintain or increase their innovation level over time, but also countries where
conditions have negatively impacted the innovation environment and in doing so slowed down progress and the
modernisation of the economy.