Technological and scientific innovation continues to grow in the EU, with Italy among the "moderate innovators" countries. According to the 2022 edition of the European Innovation Scoreboard, published yesterday by the European Commission, EU innovation performance has improved by around 10% since 2015. Innovation performance has improved for 19 Member States and worsened for eight of them since 2021. Compared to the EU average, global competitors such as Australia, Canada, the Republic of Korea and the United States continue to perform better than the EU. Nevertheless, the EU closed the performance gap with these countries and surpassed Japan in 2021.
Based on their results, Member States are divided into four performance groups: innovation leaders (results exceeding 125% of the EU average), strong innovators (between 100% and 125% of the average), moderate innovators (between 70 % and 100 % of the average) and emerging innovators (below 70 % of the EU average). Sweden continues to be the country with the best results in the EU. Other innovation leaders are Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Finland.
Compared to last year’s edition, three countries changed performance group. The Netherlands has become an innovation leader, Cyprus is a strong innovator and Estonia a moderate innovator.
In particular:
• Germany, Ireland, France, Cyprus, Luxembourg and Austria are strong innovators, with results above the EU average.
• Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Spain, Italy, Lithuania, Malta, Portugal and Slovenia are moderate innovators.
• Bulgaria, Croatia, Latvia, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia are emerging innovators.