At the end of July, the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), a self-funding agency the United Nations gathering 192 member states, released the 12th edition of the Global Innovation Index (GII), which indicates a country’s performance when it comes to create the right conditions for new technologies and innovative processes to appear. The GII results from the average between two sub-indexes: the innovation input sub-index and the innovation output sub-index. The former “defines aspects of the environment conducive to innovation within an economy” and is based upon five pillars: institutions, human capital and research, infrastructure, market sophistication, and business sophistication. The output sub-index is based upon two pillars: knowledge and technology outputs, and creative outputs. So what drives innovation across Europe?

The GII and its sub-indexes

In the following coloured bar charts we show how countries in Europe perform within the GII. Switzerland, Norway and Iceland (non-EU high income countries) are coloured in dark grey, whereas non-EU countries in the Balkans and in the East are coloured, respectively, in medium and light grey. EU-countries, instead, are coloured according to their regional collocation within the Union: Northern (blue), Baltic (light blue), Central-Western (purple), Central-Eastern (brown), Southern (red).

Considering the overall GII score (figure 1), Northern EU countries top the ranking, followed by Central-Western states. Estonia appears to be an outlier compared to its regional partners. Switzerland outperforms all EU membersStates, being the global leader in the GII. On the opposite, Romania scores worse than other non-EU countries in the East and in the Balkans.