South Korea stayed atop among non-EU names in the annual European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS) for the seventh straight year.

According to a government report on Thursday, South Korea topped with 137 marks in this year’s innovation gauge of 10 non-EU counties evaluated by the European Commission.

The EIS, a comparative assessment of research and innovation performance for the previous year, covers the EU member states and also rates Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, India, Japan, the Russian Federation, South Africa, South Korea, and the United States on a more limited number of globally available indicators.

South Korea was followed by Canada with 118 marks, Australia 112 marks, Japan (111), the EU (100) and the U.S. (99). South Korea was 37 percent higher than the EU average. China received 80 marks, but its growth in the innovation index was twice faster than that of the EU.

The average mark of 24 EU members increased 8.8 percent from 2011, driven by the rapid spread of broadband, increase in the number of PhD holders, corporate investments into ICT projects and improvement in research systems.

Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands and Sweden were chosen as "innovation leaders" whose innovation performance is over 120 percent of the EU average, while Bulgaria and Romania were far behind the average.

South Korea is expected to widen its gap with the EU next year, while Japan will maintain its current level, but its gap with the U.S. and China will narrow, according to the report.

By Won Ho-sup and Minu Kim

[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business Newspaper & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]