115 Digital Proceedings of the ISDS 20014 – SIDE Side, Turkey, May 10-14, 2014 Innovation Dynamics of Turkish Regions Compared to European Union Malgorzata Markowska 1 , Andrzej Sokolowski 2 and Danuta Strahl 3 1 Chair of Regional Economics, Wroclaw University of Economics, POLAND. (e-mail: mmarkowska@ae.jgora.pl) 2 Department of Statistics, Cracow University of Economics, POLAND. (e-mail: sokolows@uek.krakow.pl) 3 Chair of Regional Economics, Wroclaw University of Economics, POLAND. (e-mail: dstrahl@ae.jgora.pl) ABSTRACT The main aim of the paper is the evaluation of innovation processes in Turkish regions as compared to NUTS 2 level regions from the EU countries using contemporary dynamic taxonomy tools. It refers to the application of the suggested methodology for innovation processes assessment at regional level in the following areas: profile (input and output) and global area. 8 variables are used and objects (regions) are clustered with Ward’s agglomerative method and k-means method. The composite measure of innovativeness is calculated. The analysis is carried for dynamic data covering 2008-2012 years. The results can be thus evaluated both from the point of the level of innovativeness and its dynamics. We are able to identify regions attracting innovativeness and entrepreneurship. Regions of Turkey are considered in comparison to EU regions. Keywords: dynamic cluster analysis, innovations, NUTS 2 regions. 1. INTRODUCTION Decentralization in innovation management observed in many countries lead to the growing importance of regions in creating innovation politics and infrastructure (Magro, Wilson [2013]). Innovativeness is inevitable for the effective functioning in very competitive world economy. New better products, methods and processes are key factors in increasing of productivity and creation of new work places. Politics of state and local governors concentrated on innovativeness is of crucial importance for dealing with economic crisis. In the last decade special attention is paid to the competitiveness and innovativeness on regional and local levels (OECD [2001, 2007, 2001], Doloreux, Parto [2004]). Decentralization in policy management favors the growth of competence on regional level (Magro, Wilson [2013]). Regional innovations systems play important role in strengthening competitiveness and productivity. Science, technology and innovations are main engines for long-term economic growth, and its diversity can be explained by different levels in knowledge, science and technology (Soete [2011]).