On February 7, 2012 the European Commission has presented the “Innovation Union Scoreboard 2011” (IUS). The report compares the innovation performance of the EU member states, Croatia, Iceland, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Norway, Serbia, Switzerland and Turkey. Moreover, the EU is compared with 10 of its global competitors. The scoreboard monitors the implementation of the Innovation Union as one of the Europe 2020 flagship initiatives.

The IUS 2011 states an improvement of EU27´s innovation performance over the last five years. Germany takes the 3rd position in the European Union ranking behind Sweden and Denmark and belongs to the so called “innovation leaders”. Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania and Romania take the last places.

The international comparison shows a performance lead of Japan, Switzerland, South Korea and the United States over EU27. According to the study Brazil, China and India are outranged by the European Union but the lead is shrinking continuously.

Besides the overall performance the scoreboard compares important aspects of innovation in more detail. In terms of human resources, research system, finance & support and linkages & entrepreneurship Germany ranks only in the middle of the field.

The report acknowledges that current impacts can not be fully captured because of the limited database.