WASHINGTON - The United States continues to face an urgent need to improve its innovation-based competitiveness if it is to achieve a robust economic recovery, according to a report released today by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation.

The report, Atlantic Century II: Benchmarking EU and U.S. Innovation and Competitiveness, produced by ITIF with support from the European-American Business Council, updates the 2009 report of the same title that compared the U.S. to almost forty nations on 16 key indicators of innovation-based competitiveness, such as scientists and engineers, corporate and government R&D, venture capital, productivity and trade performance.

The 2009 report served as a wake-up call for many public and private sector leaders about the long-term competitiveness of the United States. Corporate leaders such as Eli Lilly and Co. CEO John Leichtleiter and Intel CEO Paul Otellini, top Administration officials, Members of Congress and others have cited the report in making the case for revitalizing U.S. innovation.

The 2011 report finds that the U.S. has made little or no progress. Of the 44 countries and regions surveyed, the U.S. is not number 1, it is 4^th, (its rank in 2009 as well), behind Singapore, Finland and Sweden. But this is down from the number one position in 2000.

Of greater concern, however, is the fact that the U.S. continues to rank at the bottom - second only to Italy - on progress on improving its innovation capacity and competitiveness over the last decade.

"The Great Recession and the incredibly anemic recovery are seen by most pundits as simply the result of a failure of regulation, in the case of the former, and a long time to recover from financial crises, in the case of the latter," said ITIF President Robert D. Atkinson. "What this report points to, however, is that it was America's declining innovation performance that was at the heart of the economic crisis and remains at the heart of the current slow economic recovery. Unfortunately, we continue to merely wait for the storm to pass when we should be hard at work revitalizing Amer