50 years behind
These days our newspapers have quietly slipped into electoral mode, giving space either to useless debates on ethics between left and right wing coalitions (who the hell has ethics any more in today's Italian politics?) or to sensational pieces of news, such as the chance that pornstar Rocco Siffredi may join the Isola dei Famosi, perhaps the most sleep-inducing of today's reality shows.
In the worst cases you may even bump into articles elaborating on how democratic cashmere may be.
Before going and getting drunk on toilet disinfectant, of course, you will have turned on Re-immigration. And for your consolation, here's a nice and interesting piece of news: the EU is 50 years behind the US for innovation.
Unbelievable? no way - actually I had a hard time believing that Italy is ranked as "average" in the list of European countries, so I checked the full report and figured out why we do not rank bottom of the bottom, as we would deserve if judged by our R&D expenditure, which is the lowest in the EU when compared to GDP.
Actually, if you check the rate of innovation outputs (such as patents) compared to inputs (such as money invested in R&D), you can see that Italy fares pretty well. So we innovate much more than others compared to what is invested in innovation.
Why is that? because, fundamentally, we are very receptive to innovation, as this ranking confirms. And it is evident if you just walk the streets: Italians are keen on trying out new things, they are ahead of many others in mobile technology, they encourage design to advance by being very selective when choosing products from the market and they are generally very demanding (that's also why they always complain, if you are wondering).
If you check the innovation readiness ranking you can perhaps notice a curious fact: out of the four countries that are rated as most innovative, two (Finland and Germany) rate way below EU25 average, and two others (Denmark and Sweden) rate slightly above, but still way below Italy. Out of ten Italians, six are attracted or enthusiastic about innovation, while in Germany the number is just above four.
And why is it that Germans and Finns don't want to use new technologies, but produce way more innovation than us? you name it: our government is busy trying not to lose the next election, and whoever wins them will do everything they can to keep voters happy by a series of populistic measures (less tax for everyone!!!) and by re-inforcing lobby protection mechanisms (see my Christmas wish number 5). After all, aren't we number 42 in the economic freedom ranking (kudos to Mahmood for the link).
Can you imagine someone running for election by shouting "you'll all have to pay more taxes because we need to find the money to become more competitive" actually getting any votes? Come on! innovative Italians out there want to save money to buy the latest SUV equipped with the latest technology.
So let's get back to reality. I'm happy not to be the last in Europe this time (and my warmest thanks to Greece who usually saves us from occupying that position in other rankings).
In the worst cases you may even bump into articles elaborating on how democratic cashmere may be.
Before going and getting drunk on toilet disinfectant, of course, you will have turned on Re-immigration. And for your consolation, here's a nice and interesting piece of news: the EU is 50 years behind the US for innovation.
Unbelievable? no way - actually I had a hard time believing that Italy is ranked as "average" in the list of European countries, so I checked the full report and figured out why we do not rank bottom of the bottom, as we would deserve if judged by our R&D expenditure, which is the lowest in the EU when compared to GDP.
Actually, if you check the rate of innovation outputs (such as patents) compared to inputs (such as money invested in R&D), you can see that Italy fares pretty well. So we innovate much more than others compared to what is invested in innovation.
Why is that? because, fundamentally, we are very receptive to innovation, as this ranking confirms. And it is evident if you just walk the streets: Italians are keen on trying out new things, they are ahead of many others in mobile technology, they encourage design to advance by being very selective when choosing products from the market and they are generally very demanding (that's also why they always complain, if you are wondering).
If you check the innovation readiness ranking you can perhaps notice a curious fact: out of the four countries that are rated as most innovative, two (Finland and Germany) rate way below EU25 average, and two others (Denmark and Sweden) rate slightly above, but still way below Italy. Out of ten Italians, six are attracted or enthusiastic about innovation, while in Germany the number is just above four.
And why is it that Germans and Finns don't want to use new technologies, but produce way more innovation than us? you name it: our government is busy trying not to lose the next election, and whoever wins them will do everything they can to keep voters happy by a series of populistic measures (less tax for everyone!!!) and by re-inforcing lobby protection mechanisms (see my Christmas wish number 5). After all, aren't we number 42 in the economic freedom ranking (kudos to Mahmood for the link).
Can you imagine someone running for election by shouting "you'll all have to pay more taxes because we need to find the money to become more competitive" actually getting any votes? Come on! innovative Italians out there want to save money to buy the latest SUV equipped with the latest technology.
So let's get back to reality. I'm happy not to be the last in Europe this time (and my warmest thanks to Greece who usually saves us from occupying that position in other rankings).
posted by mac | 23:12
2 Comments:
I'm just wondering the credibility of that report. I was expecting to see Spain catching up and Italy loosing ground. Spain has been investing a lot in IT research and progressing quite well. But you are right, it's not just abuot being innovative (where Italy scores pretty well) but about making money with that innovation.
No, he loves Italian trains;-)
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