Measuring Europe’s innovation performance: Insights from the European innovation scoreboard 2025
Long-term progress, emerging challenges, and the role of data in driving innovation
The European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS) offers a yearly snapshot of how well Europe performs in research and innovation. Released on 15 July 2025, the latest edition compares the innovation performance of EU Member States, neighbouring European countries, and selected global competitors. By tracking progress over time, the EIS helps policymakers, researchers, and businesses understand how national innovation systems are evolving and where further action is needed.
At its core, the EIS answers a simple question: how strong are national innovation systems, and where can they improve? To do this, the scoreboard combines data on areas such as education, research investment, business innovation, digital skills, and the economic impact of innovation. Based on their overall scores, countries are grouped into four categories: Innovation Leaders, Strong Innovators, Moderate Innovators, and Emerging Innovators, making it easier to understand relative performance at a glance. This structure helps policymakers identify strengths, spot gaps, and design targeted policies that support innovation-driven growth.
One of the most notable findings of the European Innovation Scoreboard 2025 is the contrast between steady long-term progress and more uneven short-term developments. Since 2018, the European Union’s overall innovation performance has increased by 12.6 percentage points, with all Member States improving over time. Yet between 2024 and 2025, performance declined slightly at EU level, as gains in 13 Member States were offset by decreases in 14 others. At country level, several shifts stand out: Sweden reclaimed its position as the EU’s most innovative country, Croatia moved up to the Moderate Innovators group, while Cyprus and Hungary changed performance categories despite continued score improvements, highlighting how relative progress matters as much as absolute growth.
All results of the EIS are built on open data and can be explored through the EIS interactive tool, which allows users to compare countries, analyse trends, and reuse data for research or policy analysis. Explore the European Innovation Scoreboard 2025 and its interactive tool to better understand how innovation is evolving across Europe.
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