Abstract:

Innovation and education in particular are becoming key factors for the growth of competitiveness, as well as the ability to apply the results of science, research and development in business practice. In this paper, we focus on three main areas. As the Slovak Republic is a member state of the European Union, one subchapter focuses on the level of innovation activity across the European Union and emphasizes the position of Slovakia in the ranking of all member states. However, we focused more on the innovative activity of companies operating in the Slovak Republic and the aim of this paper was to emphasize the main barriers that prevent companies from innovating. When processing the paper, we mainly used the meta-analysis to review studies by foreign authors, documents issued by the Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic and the European Union.