The relationship assessment between human resources and innovation performance in EU countries

Abstract

The scientific study aims to explore the impact of human capital quality on the final score of the Summary Innovation Index (SII) and to identify differences in the values of some indicators within the Human Resources (HR) dimension in EU countries. We use Pearson´s and Spearman´s correlation coefficients to verify the dependence between human capital and innovation performance. We use the comparison method to compare the differences in the values of SII and individual indicators in the HR dimension. When processing the task, we used statistical data within the year 2022, which we drew from the European Commission publication "European Innovation Scoreboard 2022". As a result of our assessment, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, and the Netherlands perform best in the Human Resources dimension as well as in the SII. The worst performers are Romania, Bulgaria, followed by Latvia, Poland and Slovakia. The largest differences among EU countries in the HR dimension are in the “Population involved in lifelong learning” indicator. Hungary shows the most balanced values within the individual indicators of the HR dimension, while the Netherlands shows the most noticeable differences. We confirmed the hypothesis of statistical dependence between the HR dimension and the SII.