According to the European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS), published on 22 June Luxembourg rose from being classed as a “strong innovator” in 2017 to an “innovation leader”, performing 20% or more above the EU average. Also in the leader group was Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Sweden and UK. Germany did the opposite, sliding from an “innovatin leader” to a “strong innovator” where it joined Austria, Belgium, France, Ireland and Slovenia, a group which performed above or close to the EU average.

Luxembourg retained its place as the best-performing country for attractive research systems, followed by the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, UK and Belgium. According to the report, this means the countries are open for cooperations with partners from abroad, researchers are well networked at international level and the quality of research output is very high. The grand duchy scored well for innovation in small and medium-sized companies, ranking fourth behind Ireland, Belgium and Germany. This means Luxembourg has a high share of SMEs with innovative products and business services.

The EIS is produced by the European Commission to provide a comparative assessment of research and innovation performance within the EU. On the whole, the EU average innovation performance was better than that of China, Brazil, South Africa, Russia and India. It could not compete, however with the South Korea, which performed almost 24% above the EU score, as well as Canada, Australia, Japan and the US.