The 2017 EU Innovation Scoreboard, which is accompanied also by the Regional Innovation Scoreboard shows that Sweden remains the innovation leader, followed by Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom – for the first time an innovation leader- and Germany.

Elżbieta Bieńkowska, Commissioner for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs, said: "EU industry continues to innovate, but we are still lagging behind global innovation leaders. In times of globalisation and rapid technology changes, innovation remains essential for the prosperity of our citizens and the wider European economy. The Commission's Start-up and Scale-up Initiative and New Skills Agenda aim to further improve an ecosystem for innovation to thrive."

 Carlos Moedas, Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation, said: "The Scoreboard shows that still more can be done to improve research and innovation performance. That's why we're gearing up support to breakthrough innovators through the pilot European Innovation Council under the EU's Horizon 2020 research and innovation framework programme."

In selected areas of innovation, the EU leaders are: Denmark – human resources and innovation-friendly environment; Luxembourg – attractive research systems and intellectual assets; Finland – finance and support; Germany – firm investments; Ireland – innovation in SMEs and employment impacts; Belgium – innovation linkages and collaboration; United Kingdom – sales effects.

The 2017 edition of the Scoreboard uses a refined methodology, which better captures investments in skills, digital readiness, entrepreneurship, and public-private innovation partnerships. To allow performance to be tracked over time, the new methodology has also been applied to data from previous years. The Scoreboard also includes guidance to improve the analyses and comparisons of structural differences between countries and regions.

Background

The annual European Innovation Scoreboard provides a comparative assessment of the research and innovation performance of the EU countries and selected third countries. The Regional Innovation Scoreboard assesses the innovation performance of European regions. It replicates the methodology of the European Innovation Scoreboard to the extent possible in terms of data availability.

Download the full report: ec.europa.eu

Source:  ec.europa.eu
Graphics: ec.europa.eu