Innovativeness of European Union’s economies in the context of the Lisbon Strategy

The Lisbon Strategy was accepted by the European Council in March 2000 during the Lisbon summit. The Strategy is European Union’s answer to many challenges resulting from the economic globalisation process and the dynamic development of information technologies. The importance of these challenges is paramount. Hence, it has turned out that the new strategies based on the principle of balanced development which would modernise the European economy are indispensable. Even though in the last decade of the 20й1 century integration processes of Union’s economies underwent considerable intensification, they still could not outweigh the American economy in the technological race. As a result western European economies became less competitive in comparison with the American counterpart. The Lisbon Strategy is the best - developed programme of the improvement in economic competitiveness which has been implemented by the EU’s member countries. The rise in innovativeness of the EU economies plays a key role in the implementation of the major aims of the Lisbon Strategy. The ability to facilitate those innovations and to put them into practice both have crucial importance for minimising the economic distance between EU and the USA. The aim of this paper is to analyse the innovativeness against those of the USA and Japan. The essay also evaluates the conditions and effects of the implementation of the assumptions behind the Lisbon Strategy.Zadanie pt. „Digitalizacja i udostępnienie w Cyfrowym Repozytorium Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego kolekcji czasopism naukowych wydawanych przez Uniwersytet Łódzki” nr 885/P-DUN/2014 zostało dofinansowane ze środków MNiSW w ramach działalności upowszechniającej naukę