2019 Innovation Scoreboards: The innovation performance of the EU and its regions is increasing

The European Commission’s 2019 European Innovation Scoreboard and Regional Innovation Scoreboard recently published show that the EU’s innovation performance has been improving for four years in a row

For the first time ever, Europe’s innovation outperforms that of the United States. However, the EU continues to lose some ground to Japan and South Korea, and China is catching up fast. The data complements the Commission’s recent country-specific recommendations (CSRs) in the framework of the European Semester, which highlight the role of research and innovation and include recommendations to enhance productivity growth and competitiveness.

The 2019 European Innovation Scoreboard: key findings

• Based on their scores, EU countries fall into four performance groups: innovation leaders, strong innovators, moderate innovators and modest innovators. Sweden is the 2019 EU innovation leader, followed by Finland, Denmark and the Netherlands. The United Kingdom and Luxembourg dropped from the top rank of innovation leader status to the strong innovators group, while Estonia joins the strong innovators group for the first time.
• On average, the innovation performance of the EU has increased by 8.8% since 2011. Since 2011, the innovation performance increased in 25 EU countries. Performance has increased the most in Lithuania, Greece, Latvia, Malta, the United Kingdom, Estonia, and the Netherlands, and decreased the most in Romania and Slovenia.
• At the global level, the EU has surpassed the United States. The EU’s performance lead over Brazil, India, Russia, and South Africa remains considerable. However, China is catching up three times as fast as the EU’s innovation performance is growing. Relative to Japan and South Korea, the EU has been losing ground.
• In selected areas of innovation, the best performing EU countries are: Denmark – human resources and innovation-friendly environment; Luxembourg – attractive research systems; France – finance and support; Germany – firm investment; Portugal – SME innovators; Austria – linkages; Malta – intellectual assets; Ireland – employment impacts and sales impacts.

The 2019 Scoreboard is accompanied by the Regional Innovation Scoreboard. It provides a comparative assessment of performance of innovation systems across 238 regions of 23 EU Member States, while Cyprus, Estonia, Latvia, Luxembourg, and Malta are included at the country level. In addition, the Regional Innovation Scoreboard also covers regions from Norway, Serbia, and Switzerland.

The most innovative regions in the EU are Helsinki-Uusimaa, Finland followed by Stockholm, Sweden and Hovedstaden, Denmark. For 159 regions, performance has increased in the nine-year observation period. This year’s Regional Innovation Scoreboard demonstrates a strong convergence in regional performance with decreasing performance differences between regions.

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Regional Innovation Scoreboard 2019

European Innovation Scoreboard 2019