A report by the European commission suggests that the European Union (EU) is narrowing the innovation gap with the United States.

For the fourth consecutive year, the innovation gap between the United States and the EU has decreased, according to the report published Thursday.

Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Germany continue to be the innovation leaders worldwide. Britain, France, Netherlands, Belgium, Austria and Ireland are catching up.

Many of the new EU member states -- Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Portugal, Poland, Latvia, Greece, Bulgaria, Cyprus and Romania -- are steadily catching up with the EU average.

Estonia, Spain, Italy, Malta, Hungary, Croatia and Slovakia are categorized as trailing countries.

Innovation is a key pillar of the European commission's strategy to build growth and jobs -- the revised Lisbon agenda.

The study measures the innovation performance of a country's economy based on a wide range of indicators, from education to expenditure in Information and Communication Technologies, investment in R&D or number of patents.

Source: Xinhua