European Innovation Scoreboard 2020 shows the necessity to boost Public Procurement of Innovation on EU

The 2020 edition of the innovation scoreboard highlights that the EU’s innovation performance continues to increase at a steady pace, with growing convergence between EU countries. On average, the innovation performance of the EU has increased by 8.9% since 2012.

Sweden continues to be the EU innovation leader, followed by Finland, Denmark and the Netherlands. This year Luxembourg (previously a strong innovator) joins the innovation leaders, while Portugal (previously a moderate innovator) joins the group of strong innovators.

The European Innovation Scoreboard demonstrates the EU’s and Member States commitment towards research and innovation. It also supports the development of policies to enhance innovation in Europe and inform policy makers in a rapidly changing evolving global context.

About two-thirds of Europe’s economic growth over the last decades has been driven by innovation. Research and innovation boost the resilience of our production sectors, the competitiveness of our economies and the digital and ecological transformation of our societies. They also ensure preparedness for the future and are critical to deliver on the European Green Deal. Horizon Europe, the EU’s research and innovation programme for the years 2021-27 with a proposed budget of € 94.4 billion, will help accelerate Europe’s environmental and digital transformation, as also highlighted in the EU’s new Industrial Strategy.

The scoreboard is based on 21 different contextual indicators, one of them taking into account the government procurement of advanced technology products, that measures the extent to which government procurement decisions foster technological innovation (from 1, not at all, to 7, extremely effectively). Only 13 of the 37 analysed countries get more than 3.5 out of 7 in this indicator.

Therefore, the European innovation scoreboard 2020 shows the differences between EU countries regarding public procurement of advanced technology products or innovative products and, therefore, the big challenge and necessity of implementing Public Procurement of Innovation Strategies in all European countries and industry sectors.

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