In the last decades innovation has been increasingly regarded as a crucial factor to maintain competitiveness in a globalised economy. According to Looney (2009), innovation is a key driver of economic and social progress in OECD countries and if it is absent, growth stalls and economies and communities stagnate. Also, innovation is considered as a mechanism to enhance any organisations’ ability to adapt to changing environments (OECD, 2009). Public services, including education, although they do not tend to operate within competitive markets and have the same incentives as businesses to innovate (Lekhi, 2007), there are important arguments to push for innovation in education as a means to maximise the value of the public investment. At these days that most countries are facing a major global financial and economic crisis, the need to promote innovation appears to be stronger than ever. Innovation is necessary and its capacity is the most important factor to affect the school performance (Hurley & Hult, 1998). Alongside, education and particularly its funding is an important issue of nations in Central and Eastern Europe and from the governments’ and the taxpayers’ point of view the efficiency of the educational system is a matter of great importance. However, despite the attention on educational innovations and educational efficiency little is known on the relationship between school efficiency and innovations. The process of innovation has been a matter for intense research for many years and most of the studies concern business and industrial organizations in comparison with educational organizations who have not received the same attention (Rajeev, 2001). School innovation means that schools want to change the current situation, including change in ideology and practise. Members of schools might have to re-learn new skills or adjust to meet the new challenge; and the school itself might set up new models of operation or make some changes (Huang, 2012). Innovations correspond to a broad concept, which is defined here as: ‘an idea, process or product that is new for an organization at the time it is introduced’ ( (Dosi, 2000), (Rogers, 2003), (Stoneman, 2001)). Practical examples in the context of schools are, e.g., the change in teaching style, teaching facilities and teacher professionalization. Concerning efficiency, according to Sherman’s (1988) definition of the efficiency as ‘the ability to produce the outputs or services with a minimum resource level required’, the focus of an educational system should rely on delivering high student achievement minimizing the use of resources. Furthermore, Farrell (1957) who is credited with pioneering the measurement of efficiency, recognized the importance of measuring the extent to which outputs (student achievement) can be increased through higher efficiency without using additional resources (inputs). The purpose of this study is to examine the implementation of innovations in Primary Schools in Greece regarding five basic factors: (1) profiling, (2) pedagogic, (3) process, (4) teacher professionalization and (5) education chain innovations.  Moreover, the study tries to reveal possible effects of the above factors in school performance and consequently in school efficiency.

Charnes, A., Cooper, W., & Rhodes, E. (1978). Measuring the efficiency of decision making units. European Journal of Operational Research , σσ. 429 - 444. Dosi, G. (2000). The research on innovation diffusion: an assessment. In G. Dosi (Ed.). Cheltenham, Glos, USA: Edward Elgar Publishing Limited. Farrell, M. (1957). The Measurement of Productive Efficiency. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society (120), σσ. 253 - 281. Huang, H.-M. (2012). The Research of School Innovation and Effectiveness. International Conference on Education and Management Innovation . Hurley, R., & Hult, G. T. (1998). Innovation, market orientation, and organizational learning: An integration and. Journal of Marketing , σσ. 42-54. Kirjavainen, T. (2009). Essays on the Efficiency of Schools and Student Achievement. Lekhi, R. (2007). Public Service innovation. A research report to the Work Foundation’s Knowledge Economy Programme . Looney, J. W. (2009). Assessment and Innovation in. OECD Education Working Papers . OECD. (2009). Measuring innovation in education and training. Paris. Rajeev, S. (2001, April). Innovations in schools: Identifying a framework for initiating sustaining and managing them. 82nd Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) . Rogers, E. M. (2003). Diffusion of Innovations (5 εκδ.). New York: Free Press. Sherman, Η. (1988). Service organization productivity management. The Society of Management Accountants of Canada . Stoneman, P. (2001). The Economics of Technological Diffusion. Oxford.