The European Innovation Scoreboard 2020 was released on 23 June 2020. It provides a comparative analysis of innovation performance in EU countries, other European countries, and regional neighbours. It assesses relative strengths and weaknesses of national innovation systems and helps countries identify areas they need to address.
The 2020 edition of the innovation scoreboard highlights that the EU's innovation performance continues to increase at a steady pace, with growing convergence between EU countries. At the global level, the EU has surpassed the United States for the second time. The EU continues to have a performance lead over the United States, China, Brazil, Russia, South Africa, and India. Since 2012, the EU’s performance gap with South Korea, Australia and Japan has increased, while the EU’s performance lead over the United States, China, Brazil, Russia and South Africa has decreased.
Mariya Gabriel, Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, said: “The EU is leading the way out of the coronavirus crisis by intensifying its support to research efforts and bringing together diverse players of the innovation ecosystems, from both the public and private sector, that can transform new ideas into reality and improve the life of citizens. Post-covid EU will be stronger and more united than ever before leveraging its creativity and innovation performance as this year's Scoreboard highlights”.
On average, the innovation performance of the EU has increased by 8.9% since 2012. Performance increased in 24 EU countries since 2012, with the biggest increases in Lithuania, Malta, Latvia, Portugal and Greece.
Sweden continues to be the EU innovation leader, followed by Finland, Denmark and the Netherlands. This year Luxembourg (previously a strong innovator) joins the innovation leaders, while Portugal (previously a moderate innovator) joins the group of strong innovators.
This year’s scoreboard is marked by the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the EU. This has had a small impact on the EU’s average innovation performance, but the relative performance of EU countries in relation to EU’s global performance remains unaffected.
The EIS 2020 applies the same methodology as last year’s edition. However, results should not be compared across editions due to data revisions. Time series of the results are presented in the current edition which compare tracked performance since 2012 based on the most recent data.
Background
The coronavirus pandemic has shaken the world in an unprecedented manner testing the resilience of our societies, economies, healthcare and welfare systems. The EU has done its utmost to use the tools at hand to protect lives whilst preserving the single market, and supporting Europe's economy. Research and innovation have proven to be an essential part of the coordinated EU response to the crisis and they will be vital to support Europe's sustainable and inclusive recovery. Measuring innovation performance is a key element in achieving this goal.
The European Innovation Scoreboard demonstrates the EU's and Member States commitment towards research and innovation. It also supports the development of policies to enhance innovation in Europe and inform policy makers in a rapidly changing evolving global context.
About two-thirds of Europe's economic growth over the last decades has been driven by innovation. Research and innovation boost the resilience of our production sectors, the competitiveness of our economies and the digital and ecological transformation of our societies. They also ensure preparedness for the future and are critical to deliver on the European Green Deal. Horizon Europe, the EU's research and innovation programme for the years 2021-27 with a proposed budget of € 94.4 billion, will help accelerate Europe's environmental and digital transformation, as also highlighted in the EU's new Industrial Strategy.
Documents and Media
European innovation scoreboard 2020 – Annex B (Performance per indicator)
European innovation scoreboard – Exploratory report on capturing mechanisms and emerging phenomena of innovation
European innovation scoreboard – Technical note on the integration of EIS results with other relevant data and policy analysis
European innovation scoreboard – Exploratory report on supplementary analyses and contextualisation of innovation performance data
European innovation scoreboard – Exploratory report on opportunities in data analytics for innovation performance measurement (big data)
European innovation scoreboard – Case study on innovation performance in selected Smart Specialisation Platform regions
Previous editions: 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2011 to 2014 and before 2011