According to this year’s European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS) prepared by the European Commission, Poland is among the group of emerging innovators with a score of 60.5 % of the average. The EIS is an annual compilation of the performance of European Union (EU) member states and selected third countries on the research and innovation performance of the economy.

Across the EU as a whole, the innovation index has increased by 10 % since 2015. Compared to 2021, its level has improved in 19 member states and worsened in eight. Despite the good performance in the EU in 2022, compared to global competitors, the EU still lags far behind Canada, South Korea or the USA. The best performers (measuring the height of the index against the EU average) this year were: Sweden, Finland and Denmark. Romania, Bulgaria and Lithuania had the worst scores.

Poland was among the emerging innovators. Compared to 2015, this year’s result is an improvement of 11.3 %, and compared to 2021, by 4.3 %. The biggest increases were achieved in the areas of business process innovation (up 60.9 % from 2015), state support for R&D in companies (up 59.1 %from 2015), and companies enabling employees with IT training (up 50% from 2015).

In contrast, the largest decreases since 2015 were recorded in environmental technologies (down 69.4%), non-R&D innovation spending (down 45.9 %) and innovation spending per employee (down 8.9 %).

According to the analysts of the Polish Economic Institute, larger positive changes in the innovativeness of Poland and the other Member States may occur in the coming years, only. Adopted in July 2022, the new European Innovation Plan aims to narrow the gap with global leaders. The aim is to invest in the most advanced technologies to allow Europe to start playing a leading role on the international stage.

Arkadiusz Słomczyński