The Netherlands remains at the top of the rankings in the latest edition of the authoritative European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS) 2025. Behind Sweden and Denmark, the Netherlands is now ranked as an Innovation Leader. However, the Dutch score has declined for the second year in a row. The government aims to reverse this trend with an ambitious action plan to invest 3% of the economy in research and development by 2030.
While other countries are investing purposefully in technology and resilience, the Netherlands is lagging behind. A lack of innovation creates dependencies, hinders opportunities for our entrepreneurs, jeopardizes jobs, threatens economic security, and, in the long term, the affordability of public services such as healthcare and safety.
Minister Karremans (Economic Affairs):
Our position in this ranking seems to say: 'innovation is going well here.' But upon closer inspection, the honest conclusion is that we all need to do more. We are investing too little in innovation, both privately and publicly, are not sufficiently bringing our valuable knowledge to market, and there are few knowledge-intensive companies in the Netherlands. Other countries are taking extra steps, and we must do the same. Because we must earn money before we can spend.
The Netherlands: EU innovation leader, but not a top innovation investor
The Netherlands' current good position is mainly due to our science, education, digitalization, and public-private partnerships. But if we stop investing now, we will lose that position in the future. When it comes to investments in research and development (R&D), we rank only ninth, lagging far behind countries like Germany (3.1%), Austria (3.3%), Belgium (3.3%), and Sweden (3.6%). The Netherlands, along with countries like France (2.2%), Slovenia (2.1%), and the Czech Republic (1.8%), has not met the 3% target for years, despite earlier ambitions to close the gap.
Innovation leaders are those countries that score more than 25% above the EU average. The EIS assesses all EU Member States on 32 indicators and compares these results with other countries within and outside Europe. These indicators include investments in research and development, public-private partnerships, innovation within SMEs, digitalization, patent applications, research quality, and the level of employment within innovative companies.
