The Level of Innovation of European Capitals and Cities – The Innovation Cities Index in EU and Non-EU Countries

References
- 2ThinkNow. (2024a). Innovation cities index 2018–2023: City rankings method overview. Available at: https://innovation-cities.com/index-2019-city-rankings-method-overview-2/18835.
- 2ThinkNow. (2024b). Indexes all years. Available at: https://innovation-cities.com/reference/innovation-cities-indexes/indexes-all-years.
- 2ThinkNow. (2024c). Innovation cities index 2022–2023: Global 500 world’s most innovative cities. Available at: https://innovation-cities.com/worlds-most-innovative-cities-2022-2023-city-rankings/26453.
- 2ThinkNow. (2024d). List of indicators. Available at: https://innovation-cities.com/city-indicators-indicateurs-indicadors-indicatores-indikators-kpis/6365.
- Albahari, A., Barge-Gil, A., Pérez-Canto, S. and Landoni, P. (2023). ‘The effect of science and technology parks on tenant firms: A literature review’, The Journal of Technology Transfer, 48(4), pp.1489–1531. 10.1007/s10961-022-09949-7.
- Berger, T. and Frey, C. B. (2017). ‘Industrial renewal in the 21st century: evidence from US cities’, Regional Studies, 51(3), pp.404–413. 10.1080/00343404.2015.1100288.
- Bitkowska, A., Gierszewska, G. and Łabędzki, K. M. (2020). ‘Smart cities from Polish perspective’, Issues in Information Systems, 21, pp.298–310. 10.48009/3_iis_2020_298-310.
- Brzezicki, Ł. and Prędki, A. (2023). ‘An estimation of the efficiency of public research institutes in Poland: The DEA approach’, Zeszyty Naukowe Uniwersytetu Ekonomicznego w Krakowie, 2(1000), pp.33–50. 10.15678/ZNUEK.2023.1000.0202.
- Bylund, J. (2020). ‘Joint programming for urban transformations: the making of the JPI Urban Europe Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda’, Urban Transformations, 2(1), p.10. 10.1186/s42854-020-00012-y.
- Cao, Z., Derudder, B., Dai, L. and Peng, Z. (2022). ‘Buzz-and-pipeline’ dynamics in Chinese science: the impact of interurban collaboration linkages on cities’ innovation capacity, Regional Studies, 56(2), pp.290–306. 10.1080/00343404.2021.1906410.
- Center for Industrial Development and Environmental Governance. (2020). The global innovation hubs index 2020. Available at: https://www.nature.com/collections/efhchjbadd.
- Dai, L., Derudder, B., Cao, Z. and Ji, Y. (2023). ‘Examining the evolving structures of intercity knowledge networks: the case of scientific collaboration in China’, International Journal of Urban Sciences, 27(3), pp.371–389. 10.1080/12265934.2022.2042365.
- EasyPark. (2021). The cities of the future index. Available at: https://easyparkgroup.com/studies/cities-of-the-future/en.
- European Commission. (2020). Innovating cities. Available at: https://research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/research-area/environment/urban-development/innovating-cities_en.
- European Innovation Council. (2024). The european capital of innovation awards. Available at: https://eic.ec.europa.eu/eic-prizes/european-capital-innovation-awards_en.
- Eurostat. (2024). Glossary: Innovation. Available at: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php? title = Glossary:Innovation.
- Fan, F., Lian, H. and Wang, S. (2020). ‘Can regional collaborative innovation improve innovation efficiency? An empirical study of Chinese cities’, Growth and Change, 51(1), pp.440–463. 10.1111/grow.12346.
- Feher, K. and István B. (2020). ‘Recommendations, best practices and key factors of smart city and smart citizenship’, Smart Cities and Regional Development (SCRD) Journal, 4(1): 37–55. 10.25019/scrd.v4i1.62.
- Fischer, M. M., Diez, J. R. and Snickars, F. (2001). ‘Metropolitan Innovation Systems’, Advances in Spatial Science. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg. 10.1007/978-3-662-04630-2.
- Florida, R., Adler, P. and Mellander, C. (2017). ‘The city as innovation machine’, Regional Studies, 51(1), pp.86–96. 10.1080/00343404.2016.1255324.
- Guo, J., Fu, Y. and Sun, X. (2023). ‘Green innovation efficiency and multiple paths of urban sustainable development in China: Multi-configuration analysis based on urban innovation ecosystem’, Scientific Reports, 13(1), p.12975. 10.1038/s41598-023-40084-x.
- Han, J., Chen, Z., Zeeshan, M., Rehman, A., Ullah, I. and Sarwar, S. (2023). ‘The influence of civilized city honorary title on the urban innovation capacity’, Environment, Development and Sustainability. 26(8):20841–20867. 10.1007/s10668-023-03504-6.
- Lee, N. and Rodríguez-Pose, A. (2014). ‘Innovation in creative cities: Evidence from British small firms’, Industry and Innovation, 21(6), pp.494–512. 10.1080/13662716.2014.983748.
- Liu, K., Dong, S., Wang, Y. and Chen, Z. (2024). ‘The green innovation efficiency of Chinese cities: Regional differences, distribution dynamics, and convergences’, Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, No.67(11), pp.2695–2720. 10.1080/09640568.2023.2197555.
- López-Ruiz, V.-R., Alfaro-Navarro, J.-L. and Nevado-Peña, D. (2014). ‘Knowledge-city index construction: An intellectual capital perspective’, Expert Systems with Applications, 41(12), pp.5560–5572. 10.1016/j.eswa.2014.02.007.
- López-Rubio, P., Roig-Tierno, N. and Mas-Tur, A. (2020). ‘Regional innovation system research trends: Toward knowledge management and entrepreneurial ecosystems’, International Journal of Quality Innovation, 6(1), p.4. 10.1186/s40887-020-00038-x.
- Łącka, I. and Brzezicki, Ł. (2022). ‘Joint analysis of national eco-efficiency, eco-innovation and SDGS in Europe: DEA approach’, Technological and Economic Development of Economy, 28(6), pp.1739–1767. 10.3846/tede.2022.17702.
- Łącka, I. and Brzezicki, Ł. (2021). ‘The efficiency and productivity evaluation of national innovation systems in Europe’, European Research Studies Journal, XXIV(Special Issue 3), pp.471–496. 10.35808/ersj/2440.
- Łącka, I. and Brzezicki, Ł. (2023). ‘The efficiency of scientific activities and technology transfer in higher education in Poland’, Nierówności Społeczne a Wzrost Gospodarczy, 75, pp.62–89. 10.15584/nsawg.2023.3.4.
- MacDonald, P. and Selmanovic, S. (2024). ‘How localised are knowledge spillovers? Evidence from microgeographic data on UK patent citations’, Economics of Innovation and New Technology, 33(2), pp.323–343. 10.1080/10438599.2023.2184809.
- Montresor, S., Orsatti, G. and Quatraro, F. (2023). ‘Technological novelty and key enabling technologies: Evidence from European regions’, Economics of Innovation and New Technology, 32(6), pp.851–872. 10.1080/10438599.2022.2038147.
- Narayanan, E., Binti Ismail, W. R. and Bin Mustafa, Z. (2022). ‘A data-envelopment analysis-based systematic review of the literature on innovation performance’, Heliyon, 8(12), p.e11925. 10.1016/j.heliyon.2022.e11925.
- Nesta. (2019). The European digital social innovation index. Available at: https://www.nesta.org.uk/feature/european-digital-social-innovation-index.
- OECD. (2021). Innovation and Data Use in Cities: A Road to Increased Well-being. Paris: OECD Publishing. 10.1787/9f53286f-en.
- Penco, L., Ivaldi, E., Bruzzi, C. and Musso, E. (2020). ‘Knowledge-based urban environments and entrepreneurship: Inside EU cities’, Cities, 96, p.102443. 10.1016/j.cities.2019.102443.
- Qian, H. (2016). ‘Skills and knowledge-based entrepreneurship: Evidence from US cities’, Regional Studies, 51(10), pp.1469–1482. 10.1080/00343404.2016.1213383.
- Rossetto, D. E., Bernardes, R. C., Borini, F. M. and Gattaz, C. C. (2018). ‘Structure and evolution of innovation research in the last 60 years: Review and future trends in the field of business through the citations and co-citations analysis’, Scientometrics, 115(3), pp.1329–1363. 10.1007/s11192-018-2709-7.
- Saunila, M. (2020). ‘Innovation capability in SMEs: A systematic review of the literature’, Journal of Innovation Knowledge, 5(4), pp.260–265. 10.1016/j.jik.2019.11.002.
- Shearmur, R. (2012). ‘Are cities the font of innovation? A critical review of the literature on cities and innovation’, Cities, 29, pp.S9–S18. 10.1016/j.cities.2012.06.008.
- Sobolewska, O. (2018). ‘Co dalej z miastami? Drogowskaz dla miast – “SMART” (What’s next for cities? Signpost for cities – “SMART”)’, In G. Gierszewska (ed.) Co dalej z zarządzaniem (What’s next for management), Warszawa: Oficyna Wydawnicza Politechniki Warszawskiej, pp.195–214.
- Song, Y., Yue, Q., Zhu, J. and Zhang, M. (2023). ‘Air pollution, human capital, and urban innovation in China’, Environmental Science and Pollution Research, 30(13), pp.38031–38051. 10.1007/s11356-022-25002-4.
- Teirlinck, P. and Spithoven, A. (2023). ‘Improving the regional innovation scoreboard for policy: How about innovation efficiency? Science and Public Policy, 50(6), pp.1001–1017. 10.1093/scipol/scad043.
- Theeranattapong, T., Pickernell, D. and Simms, C. (2021). ‘Systematic literature review paper: The regional innovation system-university-science park nexus’, The Journal of Technology Transfer, 46(6), pp.2017–2050. 10.1007/s10961-020-09837-y.
- Wang, S., Wang, J., Wei, C., Wang, X. and Fan, F. (2021). ‘Collaborative innovation efficiency: From within cities to between cities – Empirical analysis based on innovative cities in China’, Growth and Change, 52(3), pp.1330–1360. 10.1111/grow.12504.
- Wang, L., Ye, W. and Chen, L. (2021). ‘Research on green innovation of the great changsha-zhuzhou-xiangtan city group based on network’, Land, 10(11), p.1198. 10.3390/land10111198.
- Wang, Q., Yin, Q., Huang, M. and Sun, W. (2023). ‘Analysis of ecological efficiency, ecological innovation, residents’ well-being and their improvement paths in Chinese resource-based cities—based on the approaches of two-stage super-SBM and fsQCA’, Sustainability, 15(18), p.13332. 10.3390/su151813332.
- Wu, X. and Fan, D. (2023). ‘Spatial and temporal evolution characteristics of urban green innovation efficiency in Northeast China’, Frontiers in Energy Research, 11, p.1167330. 10.3389/fenrg.2023.1167330.
- Yao, M., Duan, J. and Wang, Q. (2022). ‘Spatial and temporal evolution analysis of industrial green technology innovation efficiency in the yangtze river economic belt’, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(11), p.6361. 10.3390/ijerph19116361.
- Yu, H., Ke, H., Ye, Y. and Fan, F. (2023). ‘Agglomeration and flow of innovation elements and the impact on regional innovation efficiency’, International Journal of Technology Management, 92(3), p.229. 10.1504/IJTM.2023.128840.
- Zeng, J., Škare, M. and Lafont, J. (2021). ‘The co-integration identification of green innovation efficiency in yangtze river delta region’, Journal of Business Research, 134, pp.252–262. 10.1016/j.jbusres.2021.04.023.
- Zhang, J.-X., Cheng, J.-W., Philbin, S. P., Ballesteros-Perez, P., Skitmore, M. and Wang, G. (2023). ‘Influencing factors of urban innovation and development: A grounded theory analysis’, Environment, Development and Sustainability, 25(3), pp.2079–2104. 10.1007/s10668-022-02151-7.
- Zhang, R., Ji, C., Tan, L. and Sun, Y. (2022). ‘Evaluation and construction of the capacities of urban innovation chains based on efficiency improvement’, PLoS One, 17(10), p.e0274092. 10.1371/journal.pone.0274092.
Language: English
Page range: 61 - 73
Submitted on: Oct 7, 2024
Accepted on: Oct 14, 2025
Published on: Sep 16, 2026
Published by: Warsaw University of Technology
In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services
Keywords:
Related subjects:
© 2026 Łukasz BRZEZICKI, Małgorzata CIECIORA, Agnieszka KUCHARSKA, Piotr PIETRZAK, published by Warsaw University of Technology
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.