According to a recent report by “Les Echos”, Denmark replaced Sweden as the first EU country in the European Commission’s 2023 EU Innovation ranking based on 32 indicators, followed by Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands and Belgium. The five countries make up the “Innovation Leaders Group”, and the overall performance is 125% of the EU average.
The second group is the “Innovation Powerhouse Group”, which includes Austria, Germany, Luxembourg, Ireland, Cyprus and France. France, which performed weaker than in 2022, is the only country with a decline in performance between 2016 and 2023, apart from Luxembourg.
The third group is the “Middle innovative countries”, which includes Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Estonia, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Malta, Hungary and Lithuania.
The final group of “emerging innovation countries” includes Croatia, Slovakia, Poland, Latvia, Bulgaria and Romania, with Bulgaria and Romania at the bottom of several indicators.
Notably, the most innovative country in Europe is Switzerland, ahead of the EU’s number one, Denmark. The EU’s innovation growth rate between 2016 and 2023 is slower than that of South Korea, China, the United States, Canada, and even Brazil. China has the strongest momentum of innovation growth.