A comparative assessment of the level of innovation support for sustainable economic development

Abstract

The aim of the study is to develop a methodological approach to a comparative assessment of the level of innovation support for sustainable development of the Ukrainian economy. The approach is to highlight strong and weak points in the national system of implementing the concept of sustainable development in comparison to the best world practice. Results. The suggested methodological approach involves a certain sequence of steps to assess the level of innovation support for sustainable economic development in twenty countries. Based on the techniques used in calculating the Global Innovation Index, the European Innovation Scoreboard and the Global Competitiveness Index, which allows assessing the level of innovative performance in the world, we developed a system of indicators, identified in each of the contributing factors considered at assessing the level of innovation support for sustainable development of the economy. The integral Index of innovation support for sustainable development of the economies is calculated with the methods of multicriterion analysis, including the Analytic Hierarchy Process developed by T. Saaty, to determine weighting coefficients of the components and indicators, and method of useful value analysis for the normalization of indicators' values and assessing the level of innovation support for sustainable development of the economy. Switzerland has the highest level of innovation support for sustainable development of the economy. Meanwhile, Ukraine is 18th in the ranking, ahead of Bulgaria and Romania in the group of "modest innovators" as indicated by the European Innovation Scoreboard. Ukraine ranks the worst position for its institutional component of innovation support for sustainable economic development. The country is 19th by its investment component, 17th by its marketing, education and information performance, and 14th by its scientific and technical dimension. Conclusions and directions for further research. The results rank countries by the Index of innovation support for sustainable economic development and determine leaders in each of the selected dimension. The comparative analysis of the level of innovation support for sustainable development of the national economy and 19 countries in I-IESDE confirms existence of grave problems in implementing the sustainable development concept in Ukraine. The findings show the need for a detailed analysis of the level of innovation background for sustainable development of the national economy, highlight a necessity of identifying major causes for existing lags in Ukraine's performance compared with leaders and suggesting possible ways to improve the country's ranking.