El European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS) provides an annual snapshot of research and innovation performance in Europe. The most recent edition, published on 15 July 2025, analyses and compares the results of EU Member States, as well as other European countries and international competitors.
The tool allows us to follow the evolution of national innovation systems and identify their strengths and weaknesses. It is therefore a key instrument for policymakers, researchers and companies, who can identify priority areas for action and better guide their strategies.
In essence, the EIS answers a central question: how strong are the innovation systems of European countries and where can they improve? To do this, the scoreboard combines indicators from areas such as education, R&D investment, the innovative capacity of companies, digital development and the economic impact of innovation. Based on the overall results, countries are classified into four groups: innovation leaders, strong, moderate and emerging innovators, a categorization that facilitates comparison and definition of specific policies.
One of the main conclusions of 2025 is the contrast between sustained improvement in the long term and more uneven evolution in the short term. Since 2018, the overall performance of the European Union has grown by 12,6 percentage points, with improvements across all Member States. However, between 2024 and 2025 there has been a slight overall decline, the result of an uneven balance: thirteen countries have advanced, but fourteen have regressed.
At the national level, relevant movements are also detected. Sweden has regained European leadership in innovation, while Croatia has risen to the group of moderate innovators. For its part, Cyprus i Hungary They have changed category, despite continuing to improve in absolute terms, a fact that highlights the importance of relative progress within the European Union as a whole.
Spain It remains in the moderate innovator group, with a score of 92,7, which places it above the average for its group (85,9). The country ranks fifteenth among EU Member States and nineteenth if neighboring countries are also included. In the long term, its performance has improved significantly, with an increase of 13,9 points compared to 2018 and 1,9 points compared to 2024.
All EIS data is open and can be consulted through its interactive tool, which allows you to compare countries, analyze trends and reuse the information for research purposes or public policy design.
