European Commission

The annual European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS) provides a comparative assessment of the research and innovation performance of EU Member States and selected third countries, and the relative strengths and weaknesses of their research and innovation systems. It helps countries assess areas in which they need to concentrate their efforts in order to boost their innovation performance. The EIS 2022 report is the second edition published using the new measurement framework introduced in 2021. Innovation performance increased in 26 EU Member States. Performance has increased most in Cyprus, Estonia, and Greece. The following indicators recorded the highest improvements: Business process innovators, International scientific co-publications, Innovative SMEs collaborating with others, Job-to-job mobility of Human Resources in Science & Technology, Public-private scientific co-publications, and Venture capital expenditures. Belgium, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, and Sweden are Innovation Leaders with innovation performance well above the EU average. Austria, Cyprus, France, Germany, Ireland, and Luxembourg are Strong Innovators with performance above the EU average. The performance of Czechia, Estonia, Greece, Italy, Lithuania, Malta, Portugal, Slovenia, and Spain is below the EU average. These countries are Moderate Innovators. Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Latvia, Poland, Romania and Slovakia are Emerging Innovators with performance well below the EU average.

European Commission services selected various indicators, divided into thematic groups, which illustrate some key dimensions of the European information society (Telecom sector, Broadband, Mobile, Internet usage, Internet services, eGovernment, eCommerce, eBusiness, ICT Skills, Research and Development). These indicators allow a comparison of progress across European countries as well as over time. Multiple interactive charts allow you to assess countries' profiles.

Note: We have considered the financial years 2015/16, 2016/17, 2017/18, 2018 /19, 2019/20 and 2020/2021 have been considered as 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020 R&D ranking of top 1000 EU+UK companies

Note: The financial years 2015/16, 2016/17, 2017/18 and 2018/2019 have been considered as 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018. respectively.

The 2018 edition of the EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard (the Scoreboard) included the 2500 companies investing the largest sums in R&D in the world in 2017/18. These companies, based in 46 countries, each invested over € 25 million in R&D for a total of € 736.4bn which is approximately 90% of the world's business-funded R&D. They include 577 EU companies accounting for 27% of the total, 778 US companies for 37%, 339 Japanese companies for 14%, 438 Chinese for 10% and 368 from the rest-of-the-world (RoW) for 12%. The top 2500 Scoreboard companies invested in R&D € 736.4bn in 2017/18, an increase of 8.3% with respect to the previous period. Companies also raised most financial indicators: net sales reversed the negative trend shown since 2011, increasing more than the R&D investment (9.8%); overall profits showed an impressive growth of 22.6%; capital expenditures recovered after 3 negative years (5.1%) and the number of employees continued to increase at a modest pace (2.1%). Worldwide R&D growth was driven by the ICT services and producers sectors (13% and 11% respectively), followed by the Health sector (7.7%) while the lowest R&D performance was shown by the Industrials sector (3.3%) and by Aerospace & Defense (-4.3%). The growth in net sales was led by oil-related companies due to the recovery of oil prices but significant increases were reported also in Automobiles, ICT industries and in the Industrials sector. The overall increase of profits was mostly due to oil-related companies but profits' growth of more than 20% were reported by ICT producers and Aerospace & Defence sectors while Health industries showed a decline in profits. The increases in Capex were observed especially in the ICT producers sector and also in oil-related companies. The 577 companies based in the EU invested €200.1bn in R&D, an important increase in this period (5.5%) although at a lower pace than in the previous year (6.7%). The Japanese companies presented a similar R&D growth rate than their EU counterparts (5.8%) while companies based in the US and China showed a much higher R&D growth rates (9.0% and 20.0% respectively). Worldwide an important sector shift occurred in ICT industries, mainly in ICT services that increased their R&D share from 10.8% to 14.2% but also in ICT producers (from 23.0% to 23.7%). On the other hand, sectors that underwent a decreases in R&D shares were mainly low-tech sectors and also, to a lesser extent, Industrials, Aerospace & Defence and Chemicals. EU companies reinforced their specialization in medium-high tech sectors, increasing significantly their R&D contribution to the global R&D of Automobiles by more than 6 percentage points. In contrast, EU companies reduced their global R&D share in ICT industries by more than 8 percentage points and to a lesser extent in low tech and Chemicals sectors. In line with the R&D shift, the net sales of EU companies increased their global weight in Automobiles, Aerospace & Defense and Health industries while decreasing it sharply in ICT industries and to a lesser extent in low tech.