Austria remains one of Europe’s most innovative countries: in the current European Innovation Scoreboard, published by the European Commission, the republic ranks 8th. The ranking measures a country’s innovative strength on the basis of 32 indicators. In the 2026 edition of the Innovation Scoreboard, Austria scores particularly well on the number of patent, trademark and design applications.
Further strengths are spending on research and development and the close cooperation between science and business in the field of innovation. On the other hand, one of Austria’s weaknesses as an innovation location is the limited availability of high-speed internet access.
Movement in the middle, consistency at the top
At the top, everything stays as it was: Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands lead the field as “Innovation Leaders”. What’s new is Finland’s drop out of this group: it now joins Austria among the “Strong Innovators” – the group whose results are above the EU average.
Within this group, Austria positions itself in the middle: behind Finland, Belgium, Ireland and Luxembourg, but ahead of Germany, France, Estonia and Malta.
The study also covers economies outside the EU. According to the scoreboard, the world’s most innovative country is South Korea. In Europe, Switzerland is once again out in front – as it was last year – although as a non-EU country it competes outside the official ranking.
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