The EU’s innovation performance has shown steady long-term progress, rising by 12.6 percentage points since 2018. The latest edition of the European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS) reveals notable shifts in national innovation rankings. Thirteen Member States have improved their scores since last year, with Malta (+7.6 points) and Luxembourg (+5 points) recording the largest gains. Since 2018, all EU countries have strengthened their innovation performance, though the pace of progress varies – from 0.9 points in Luxembourg to an impressive 30-point increase in Estonia.

Other key findings include:

• Sweden has reclaimed its position as the EU’s top innovator, with a 12.9-point increase since 2018, driven by strong performance in lifelong learning, business R&D expenditure, and cloud computing.
• Ireland now leads the 'strong innovators' group, having improved by 13.3 points since 2018, with notable strengths in cloud computing, CO₂ productivity in production, and SME collaboration.
• Croatia has advanced to the 'moderate innovators' group, following a significant 19.4-point increase since 2018.

However, the newly released 2025 editions of the EIS and the Regional Innovation Scoreboard (RIS) indicate a slight decline of 0.4 points between 2024 and 2025.

This recent slowdown underlines the urgent need to accelerate innovation efforts amid rising global competition and ongoing uncertainty – a message echoed in the Competitiveness Compass, the Choose Europe initiative, and the Startup and Scaleup Strategy.