Greek entrepreneurship is seeking to expand its presence in the sector of innovation, after the drop shown by the relative index during the period 2020-2022, according to the recent data of the National Documentation Center.
The percentage of sales from innovative products on the total business turnover also remains low.
As the data shows, Greek businesses have not been able to maintain the pace of innovation they developed during the pandemic in the effort to find a way out for markets and customers.
More specifically, the rate of innovation of businesses in Greece reached 65.5%, showing a decrease of 7.1 percentage points compared to the three-year period 2018-2020, when a particularly increased rate of innovation was observed, which rose to 72.6% from 60.3% in the period 2016-2018.
According to analysts, the requirements for new products and business processes due to the economic and social conditions brought about by the pandemic in 2020 (a year that belongs to the three-year reference period 2018-2020) forced businesses to seek innovation, compared with the period 2010-2016, years of sluggish innovative activity. In the period 2020-2022 the percentage of businesses in Greece with product innovation amounts to 46.6%, compared to 48.4% in the period 2018-2020 and 42.5% in the period 2016-2018. In relation to the first reference period 2010-2012, this percentage is more than double.
Spending on innovation activities reached 3.6 billion in 2022 (a 22.1% increase compared to 2020), with 52% of this spending on Research & Development. 20.6% of innovatively active enterprises have received public funding for the implementation of innovation activities and 6 out of 10 Greek innovative enterprises introduced innovations with environmental benefits, with the primary goal of reducing energy consumption and carbon footprint.
