NXTin.Health analyzes how innovation is performing across the European Union, because breakthroughs in health do not happen in isolation from broader technological advancements, investment and funding opportunities. They are closely linked to the strength of Europe’s research ecosystem, its ability to translate scientific discoveries into real-world solutions, and the conditions that enable innovative ideas to scale. Understanding Europe’s wider innovation landscape therefore offers an important lens through which to assess the future of health innovation.
Europe’s innovation performance continues to improve, with the EU’s overall score rising by 11.6 percentage points since 2019, according to the 2026 European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS), recently released by the European Commission.
Between 2025 and 2026, the EU’s innovation performance improved by 1.7 percentage points, following a more modest increase of 0.5 percentage points in the previous year. While all EU Member States have shown progress, performance varies significantly from country to country.
Sweden, Denmark, and the Netherlands once again lead the ranking, outperforming the EU average and retaining their status as ‘innovation leaders’.
Finland maintains a strong stable fourth position, while Malta has made remarkable progress, crossing the threshold to become a ‘strong innovator’ (achieving 100–125% of the EU average).
Beyond the EU, South Korea remains the most innovative global competitor, followed by China, showing the largest improvement in recent years.
Member States are categorised into four performance groups: ‘innovation leaders’, which perform at more than 125% of the EU average and include Sweden (155.1), Denmark (150.2) and the Netherlands (142.1); ‘strong innovators’, performing at 100–125% of the EU average; ‘moderate innovators’, at 70–100%; and ‘emerging innovators’, performing below 70% of the EU average.
The Innovation Scoreboard assesses annually the innovation performance across EU Member States, neighbouring countries and key global competitors. It is based on 32 indicators covering areas such as framework conditions (namely education or digital infrastructure), public and private research and development investment innovation activities (including patents and startups) and impact on the economy, environment and society.
Europe’s innovation engine has proved resilient. Every single Member State has improved its performance since 2019, and this year’s Scoreboard shows that growth is picking up again. But the global race is ever tougher and we cannot afford to slow down. The Startup and Scaleup Strategy, EU Inc. and the upcoming European Innovation Act are our answer, building the conditions for Europe to lead in innovation for decades to come.
Ekaterina Zaharieva, Commissioner for Startups, Research and Innovation
Innovation performance is essential to Europe’s competitiveness, building on the scale and strength of our Single Market. To help businesses make decisions that drive innovation and strengthen our resilience, the Commission has put in place the Industrial Accelerator Act and is working to provide further support through the European Competitiveness Fund to lay the foundations for our future prosperity.
Stéphane Séjourné, Executive Vice-President for Prosperity and Industrial Strategy
Health research and innovation are supported at the EU level to address common, large-scale health challenges.
Europe is facing an ageing population and a growing burden of chronic diseases such as cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular and brain conditions. These conditions often require complex long-term care, driving healthcare costs to potentially unsustainable levels and increasing the risk of unequal access to care across the EU.
External environmental factors, including climate change, as well as the risk to lose our ability to protect ourselves against infectious diseases, for instance due to anti-microbial resistance, are also exposing us to new risks and threats.
The European Union is investing in research, technology and innovation to develop solutions to overcome these challenges and facilitate their uptake into healthcare systems. This includes addressing gender-specific healthcare needs to ensure better health outcomes for all.
Under Horizon Europe, the EU’s current research and innovation funding programme, the main areas of intervention are
- health throughout the life course
- environmental and social health determinants
- non-communicable and rare diseases
- infectious diseases including poverty-related and neglected diseases
- tools, technologies and digital solutions for health and care including personalised medicine
- health care systems
This also includes European Partnerships in health, where the EU joins forces with public authorities, the private sector and other stakeholders to deliver on shared health research priorities.
The aim is to find new ways to keep people healthy, prevent diseases, develop better diagnostics and more effective therapies, use personalised medicine approaches to improve healthcare and wellbeing, and integrate innovative health technologies, such as digital ones.
On 2 July 2025, the Commission launched a new strategy to make Europe the most attractive place in the world for life sciences by 2030. It aims to accelerate innovation, facilitate market access, and build public trust in new technologies, ensuring they benefit the people and the planet.
Finally, Horizon Europe Cluster 1: Health follows the EU’s collaborative research funding model, breaking silos and working together across borders, by integrating scientific knowledge, disciplines, data, health technologies and resources to tackle unmet health needs and improve our health and care systems together.
The key research areas include antimicrobial drug resistance (AMR), brain research, cancer, cardiovascular diseases, chronic diseases, coronavirus, diabetes, Ebola, emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases, environment and health, HIV/AIDS, human development and ageing, malaria, mpox, personalised medicine, public health research, rare diseases, tuberculosis, women’s health, and Zika.
Source
https://projects.research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/en/statistics/performance-indicators/european-innovation-scoreboard/eis#/eis https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_26_1556 https://research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/research-area/health_en Pictures: https://commission.europa.eu/about/organisation/college-commissioners/stephane-sejourne_en https://commission.europa.eu/about/organisation/college-commissioners/ekaterina-zaharieva_en
