Innovation Europe > News > Innovation EU Vol2-1 > Innovation Switzerland

The State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) forecasts real GDP growth to be -2.7% in 2009 and -0.4% in 2010 (2).

Therefore, a negative influence can be expected on the innovation activities of Swiss firms from the demand side. However, both the credit volume data published by the Swiss National Bank and the Private Credit indicator in the EIS show that the Swiss credit markets are surprisingly robust against the ongoing financial crisis.

The EIS 2008 places Switzerland in the group of innovation leaders. In fact, Switzerland has the highest score among European countries. Most indicators are above the EU average, and some are about three times higher than the EU average, such as European Patenting Office (EPO) patents and European Community trademarks.

Furthermore, Switzerland is the only country among the innovation leaders that has an innovation score with a growth rate above the EU average. It is labelled as a growth leader in the EIS 2008. Nevertheless, the weak development of some EIS indicators, notably the indicator for Finance and support as well as that for Human resources, which have been growing below the EU average, may cause some worries. It should be noted that innovation policy in Switzerland does not explicitly aim at the EU Lisbon goals. Therefore, Switzerland does not provide any Lisbon National Reform Programme.

Main innovation challenges

• The financial crisis has caused a substantial economic downturn in Switzerland.
• Human capital formation. The growth in the acquisition of innovation relevant human capital is decreasing.
• Lack of entrepreneurship. Although Switzerland is strong in the business of invention, it lacks the ability to turn these into innovations.

Conclusion

The current organisation of the Swiss innovation strategy is quite good. Nevertheless, the situation could be improved even further:

First, there is reason to believe that the financial crisis is not over yet. Consequently, the government should take further steps to alleviate additional pressure from the economy.

The problem is that there is a limited amount of reasonable opportunities to push demand directly. The construction sector has not been affected as much as other sectors, meaning that pre-drawing investment projects are not solving the issue. The alternative is to increase available income of households.

Therefore, it is recommended that the government applies the plan to reduce taxes by a number of measures, which are currently being discussed.

Second, in line with OECD experts, it is recommended that the framework conditions for innovation should be improved further. This includes the prioritising of public R&D spending in the governement’s budget and an intensification of the technology transfer facilitation. Finally, the growth of human capital should be encouraged by strengthening higher education (OECD 2006).