Romania ranks last in EU’s 2020 Innovation Scoreboard

Romania is listed in the Modest Innovators group of the 2020 European Innovation Scoreboard, released on June 23 by the European Commission. The country shares the category with Bulgaria and ranks last in the EU on its innovation performance.

The annual European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS) offers a comparative assessment of the research and innovation performance of the EU member states, other European countries, and regional neighbours. Based on scores for 27 separate indicators, including innovation activities in companies, investment in research and innovation, and human resource and employment elements, EU countries fall into four performance groups: Innovation Leaders, Strong Innovators, Moderate Innovators, and Modest Innovators.

The fourth group of Modest Innovators includes only two Member States - Romania and Bulgaria. Their innovation performance is below 50% of the EU average.

“Innovation-friendly environment” and “Sales impacts” are the strongest innovation dimensions in the case of Romania, while the “Innovators,” “Firm investments,” and “Human resources” are the weakest, the report found. “Broadband penetration” and “Medium and high-tech product exports” are the only two indicators showing close to EU average performance.

The first group of Innovation Leaders includes five Member States where performance is above 125% of the EU average. The Innovation Leaders are Sweden, Finland, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg.

On average, the innovation performance of the EU has increased by 8.9% since 2012. Performance has improved the most in Lithuania, Malta, Latvia, Portugal, and Greece.

The 2020 European Innovation Scoreboard report is available here.

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