European Innovation Scoreboard 2019

The annual European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS) provides a comparative assessment of the research and innovation performance of the EU Member States and selected third countries, and the relative strengths and weaknesses of their research and innovation systems. It helps countries assess areas in which they need to concentrate their efforts in order to boost their innovation performance.
This year’s EIS reveals that the EU’s innovation performance continues to increase at a steady pace. Further improvement is expected for the near future, but progress remains uneven within the EU.

On average, the innovation performance of the EU has increased by 8.8 percentage points since 2011, in particular due to strong performance increases in the following indicators: New doctorate graduates, International scientific co-publications, and Broadband penetration. Since 2011, innovation performance increased in 25 EU countries and decreased in three. 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. The process of convergence, where lower performing countries are growing faster than higher performing countries, has accelerated in the EU in 2018

The performance of Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Spain is below the EU average. These countries are Moderate Innovators. Bulgaria and Romania are Modest Innovators with performance well below the EU average.