Innovation: the EU report card – Italia is making progress but remains in mid-table

Italia is making progress in innovation but remains in the ‘moderate innovators’ group. This is according to the European Commission’s European Innovation Scoreboard 2026, which ranks the country 13th out of the 27 Member States, with a score of 96.2 per cent of the EU average. Compared with 2019, Italia’s performance has improved by 15 percentage points, exceeding the European average increase (+11.6 points), whilst over the past year – when Italia was in 14th place – the improvement stood at 5 per cent.

Key strengths include applications for the registration of industrial designs – a sector in which Italia ranks first in the EU – resource productivity, which also ranks first, and the adoption of cloud computing by businesses (68 per cent of businesses). The country also stands out for the innovative capacity of its SMEs, which rank among the top in Europe for the introduction of process and product innovations, and for coming third in terms of the impact of innovation on employment and sales. However, structural challenges remain. Italia ranks only 26th in terms of the proportion of graduates in the population, 25th for the number of ICT specialists and 24th for access to high-speed broadband.

The Commission also highlights the low level of private investment in research and development – 0.79 per cent of GDP compared with an EU average of 1.49 per cent – and the continuing brain drain and shortage of STEM graduates, factors which limit the innovative capacity of the production system. Furthermore, the adoption of advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence remains limited (16.4 per cent of businesses).

According to the analysis from Brussels, the progress made in recent years has also been underpinned by investments and reforms funded through the NRRP, which have helped to strengthen universities, research and digitalisation. However, there remains a wide gap compared with the European average in terms of private investment in innovation and the ability to transform research into large, innovative businesses.