With a score of 118.6%--above the EU average--Luxembourg found its place amid the EU’s Strong Innovators, alongside Ireland, Austria, Germany, Cyprus and France. Ahead of this group are the so-called Innovation Leaders, namely Sweden, Finland, Denmark, the Netherlands and Belgium.

Among the criteria selected to determine the countries’ evolution were: doctorate graduates, population with tertiary education, lifelong learning, scientific co-publications, R&D expenditures in the public sector, the use of information technologies, product innocators, or resource productivity to cite but a few.

While saw its Firm Investments score increase by 0.6, and its linkages (meaning collaborations between various actors) increase by 22.5pp over a year, the grand duchy was among the 8 member states who saw their performance decline between 2021 and 2022. Between 2021 and 2022, the country lost 6.1% in finance and support, 19.6pp in the use of information technologies amd 14.8% in intellectual assets.

Regardless of this and its lower improvement rate than the EU, Luxembourg remains above the average --114.5% versus the grand duchy’s 118.6%.

Geographically conditioned innovation divide

The Commission in its report underlines an “innovation divide”. Emerging innovators for instance include countries like Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Latvia, Poland, Slovakia and Croatia. “The performance groups tend to be geographically concentrated, with the Innovation Leaders and most Strong Innovators being located in Northern and Western Europe, and most of the Moderate and Emerging Innovators in Southern and Eastern Europe,” the Commission

In the future, the Commission says it “will focus on bridging the innovation divide across the EU and positioning Europe as a leading player on the global innovation landscape.”