Switzerland tops European Innovation Scoreboard

The annual European Innovation Scoreboard provides a comparative assessment of the research and innovation performance of EU Member States and selected third countries. Switzerland is again heading the ranking followed by Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Belgium. Switzerland’s strengths are in Attractive research systems (high share of most-cited scientific publications, high number of doctorate graduates, high number of foreign doctorate students), Human resources (high share of employment in innovative enterprises) and Intellectual assets (patent applications).

Areas with a relatively poor performance include R&D expenditures in the public sector as well as R&D government support for business R&D, more precisely: direct government funding and government tax support for business R&D. The third weakness mentioned in the report is the relatively low share of development of environment-related technologies as percentage of all technologies.

Most countries in the ranking have improved compared to the 2020 publication. This also applies to Switzerland. The overall score increased by 7.6%. While this is above the EU average of 7.2%, other important countries in the top group advanced faster. The comparative value for Sweden is 15.9%, for Finland even 21.4% and for Belgium 20.7%. The gap between Switzerland and these top performers within the EU has thus narrowed. 

Switzerland is most competitive economy too

The news about the new innovation ranking came hot on the heels of IMD’s announcement that Switzerland has come top for the first time in the 33-year history of IMD’s World Competitiveness Ranking in a year that reflected the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on economic competitiveness. Arturo Bris, Director of the IMD World Competitiveness Center and Professor of Finance, noted that the health crisis – while devastating – was temporary. Competitiveness measures longer-term impact. “Although Switzerland was slow to fight the pandemic, it has not jeopardized its future economic growth because it has kept a disciplined financial strategy by not spending too much.” 

In addition, Switzerland enjoys the benefits of being a European country, but finds agility in its lack of European Union membership. Other European countries that topped the ranking found success by either being outside of the EU or at least of the eurozone, Bris noted. Independence and access to Europe during a period when global supply chains faced major risk was important, he said. 

The IMD World Competitiveness Ranking ranks 64 economies and assesses the extent to which a country promotes the prosperity of its people by measuring economic well-being through hard data and survey responses from executives.