The annual European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS) provides a comparative assessment of the research and innovation performance of EU Member States and selected third countries, and the relative strengths and weaknesses of their research and innovation systems. It helps countries assess areas in which they need to concentrate their efforts in order to boost their innovation performance. All results for the EU are for the current 27 Member States. Most of the data used in this report are not recent enough to capture the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The 2021 edition of the innovation scoreboard shows that Europe's innovation performance continues to improve across the EU. On average, innovation performance has increased by 12.5% since 2014. There is continued convergence within the EU, with lower-performing countries growing faster than higher-performing ones, therefore closing the innovation gap among them. Five EU countries witnessed an improvement in the performance of 25 percentage points or more (Cyprus, Estonia, Greece, Italy and Lithuania). Sweden continues to be the  EU Innovation Leader, followed by Finland, Denmark and Belgium, all with innovation performance well above the EU average. In the global landscape, the EU is performing better than its competitors like China, Brazil, South Africa, Russia, and India, while South Korea, Canada, Australia, the United States, and Japan have a performance lead over the EU. This year’s European innovation scoreboard (EIS) is based on a revised framework, which includes new indicators on digitalisation and environmental sustainability, bringing the scoreboard more in line with the EU political priorities.

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