EU, innovation accelerates, Italy lags behind

Brussels – EU innovation performance improved by 12.6 percentage points since 2018. Over this period, all EU Member States have improved their innovation performance, although the extent of this improvement varies greatly. However, between 2024 and 2025, progress declined marginally by 0.4 per cent. More precisely, during this period, innovation performance increased in 13 Member States, while 14 experienced a decline. Italy has been classified as a “moderate innovator” over the last seven years, with an index of 93 per cent of the EU average, and in 2025, it ranks 14th among the Member States, i.e. an increase of 15.4 per cent compared to 2018 and 3.4 per cent compared to the 2024 figure. 

Today (15 July), the European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS) was released, which provides a comparative assessment of the research and innovation performance of EU Member States, other European countries and global competitors. It helps countries assess the relative strengths and weaknesses of their national innovation systems and identify challenges that need to be addressed. 

As in previous editions, the EIS 2025 classifies Member States into four innovation groups according to their scores: Innovation Leaders (performance above 125 pct of the EU average), Strong Innovators (between 100 pct and 125 pct of the EU average), Moderate Innovators (between 70 pct and 100 pct of the EU average) and Emerging Innovators (below 70 pct of the EU average). 

Compared to previous editions, Sweden regains the position of the most innovative Member State, surpassing Denmark, which had been the leading EU Member State from 2020 to 2024. Three countries recorded changes in their performance group. Croatia improved its innovation performance by 19.4 percentage points from 2018 to 2025, moving from the group of Emerging Innovators to the group of Moderate Innovators. Cyprus moved from the Strong Innovators group to the Moderate Innovators group, although its score increased by 17.6 percentage points since 2018. Similarly, Hungary has moved from the Moderate Innovators group to the Emerging Innovators group, despite a 16.2 percentage point increase over the same period. 

To elaborate on Italy, its performance is above the average of moderate innovators in the EU (93.0 pct versus 85.9 pct of the EU average in 2025). And it ranks first in Europe for two key factors: design registration (whether of objects, clothing, cars, etc.) and resource productivity, which refers to the quantity of goods or services obtained with the use of a unit of resources. Italy ranks third in terms of innovations originating from small and medium-sized enterprises. Additionally, for the impact on sales and employment, i.e., for the sales of innovations that are new to the market and new to the firm, as well as for average employment in innovative firms. 

In contrast, on the negative side, Italy is second to last in two aspects. Primarily, for the digitisation of the country (and all its organs), this can also be seen in high-speed Internet access, where Italy ranks 25th in Europe; however, this figure has increased by 95 points in the last seven years. Italy is also the second country in the EU with the lowest number of people holding tertiary education, whether at university or in a specialised field, although the latter has risen by 21.9 points since 2018. Italy is third to last in the number of ICT (information and communication technology) specialists employed, with no change since 2018. It is also last for IT investment across the EU in the last year. 

Finally, Italy also struggled with the number of investments in Italian companies, with a 14.4 point drop from 2018. Although it has performed very well in design registration, the numbers are down in this area and across all areas of PCT patent applications, which enable inventors to seek patent protection in multiple countries through a single international application. Additionally, there is a drop of 13.9 points in trademark applications.