The Alpine country scored best in all seven indicators used to compile the ranking. “Switzerland’s strengths are in attractive research systems, human resources and intellectual assets. The top-3 indicators include international scientific co-publications, foreign doctorate students, and lifelong learning,” said the European Innovation Scoreboard 2021, which was published on Monday.
“Most recently innovation performance has declined, mostly due to reduced performance for government support for business R&D, employment in knowledge-intensive activities, knowledge-intensive services exports, and environment-related technologies.”
The report pointed to continued convergence within the EU, with lower-performing countries growing faster than higher-performing ones, therefore closing the innovation gap among them. As a result, the difference between the EU and Switzerland in terms of innovative strength has narrowed.