Every year, the Commission publishes a comparative assessment of the innovation performance of Member States and benchmarks it with international competitors. The data helps Member States, and the EU as a whole, assess in which areas efforts need to be focused.

This year’s edition of the European Innovation Scoreboard reveals a positive trend in the majority of EU countries – most notably in Malta, the Netherlands, and Spain, with Sweden remaining the EU innovation leader. The EU is catching up with key competitors such as Canada, Japan and the United States. But closing this innovation gap and maintaining the lead over China will require a concerted effort to deepen Europe’s innovation potential.

Sweden is once again the EU innovation leader, followed by two other nordic countires Denmark, Finland and the Netherlands.

On average, the innovation performance of the EU has increased by 5.8% since 2010. Over the last 8 years, innovation performance increased in 18 EU countries and decreased in ten. Performance has increased most in Lithuania, Malta, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom while it decreased most in Cyprus and Romania.

At the global level, the EU is catching up with Canada, Japan and the United States. The EU maintains its lead over China, but this lead is decreasing rapidly with China having improved almost three times as fast as the EU. Relative to South Korea, the EU has been falling behind, but a gradual catch-up is expected over the next years.

In selected areas of innovation, the EU leaders are:

Denmark – human resources and innovation-friendly environment;

Luxembourg – attractive research systems;

France – finance and support;

Ireland – innovation in SMEs, employment impacts, and sales impacts;

Belgium – innovation linkages and collaboration.

Over the next two years, the EU’s overall innovation performance is expected to improve by 6%.