Assessment of Technological Competitiveness of Ukraine in Terms of Association with the EU

Research background: The paper accounts for the problem of assessing the factors of the formation of Ukraine’s technological competitiveness in the face of new challenges for the state in the process of developing relations with the EU.Purpose of the article: The aim of the report is to assess the level of technological competitiveness of the Ukrainian economy and determine the most important factors for its further development in the conditions of association with the EU. Methods: The article presents the scheme of research of technological competitiveness of Ukraine on the basis of qualitative and economic-statistical analysis, analysis of comparative advantages, cluster and correlation-regression analysis. Findings & Value added: The analysis of world rankings has shown that the technological competitiveness of Ukraine determines comparative factor advantages in coverage of higher education, availability of scientific staff, and quality of research institutions, but low state support, lack of stability, and problems in institutional development hamper the country’s innovative potential. The identification of competitive advantages in trade in high-tech products demonstrates that Ukraine remains an importer of high-tech products; relatively small comparative competitive advantages among the high-tech products of Ukraine has only products of the aerospace industry. Сluster analysis showed that Ukraine is in the same cluster as Poland. Bulgaria and Romania, which have not yet fully consistent with the level of technological competitiveness of EU leaders; among the strengths of Ukraine are the development of human resources and labour effect. The correlation analysis between the components of the Global Innovation Index and the factors of increasing Ukraine’s competitiveness indicates a moderate link between the development of clusters, the ratio of expenditures on R&D to GDP, and the export of ICT services. In order to increase the level of technological competitiveness of Ukraine: to increase both foreign investments and state financing; improvement of regulatory acts, reduction of corruption, institutional improvement; support of technologies through regional cluster programs or “smart specialisation”; integration into the European Research Area