Switzerland tops the Innovation Scoreboard 2026 for the ninth year, proving its long-standing innovation culture and strength beyond the football pitch.
While Switzerland was eliminated from the knock-out stage of the World Cup 2026, the country can still count on its innovation capacity to be seen as a world leader off the pitch. In fact, with the 2026 edition of the yearly European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS), Switzerland retained first place for the ninth consecutive year “outperforming all EU Member States, [and] performing at 141.3% of the EU average in 2026”. Yet, topping the ranking is not an end in itself. Rather, it should serve as an encouragement to continuously strengthen the Swiss research and innovation ecosystem.
Switzerland significantly outperforms its competitors in many indicators used in the EIS, yet with a few areas where it scores comparatively lower. Among the 32 indicators, Switzerland records comparatively weaker scores on measures such as “Direct and indirect government support of business R&D” (19.1% compared to EU performance) and “SMEs introducing business process innovations” (68.6% compared to EU performance). The former captures the “sum of government tax allowances for R&D and direct funding of Business Enterprise Expenditure on R&D” (BERD), while the latter investigates the “number of SMEs who introduced at least one business process innovation either new to the enterprise or new to their market”.
A closer look at the first indicator suggests that Switzerland’s comparatively weak performance reflects the specific structure of its innovation system rather than a lack of R&D activity. While Switzerland provides varying R&D tax incentives at the cantonal/communal level, the country’s innovation model relies primarily on private-sector R&D investment rather than on extensive public support schemes. Swiss firms finance the vast majority of their R&D expenditure themselves, while public funding is largely channelled through higher education institutions and national funding agencies such as the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) and Innosuisse. As a result, Switzerland combines relatively low levels of direct and indirect government support for business R&D with one of the highest levels of BERD and the strongest overall innovation performance in Europe. This finding highlights the distinctive, highly private-sector-driven nature of the Swiss innovation model, and somewhat mitigates – or better explains – what indicators cannot show.
The Swiss case becomes even more interesting when placed in a broader international perspective. Beyond primarily comparing EU Member States, the EIS looks into its neighbours and further 11 global economic competitors. In this category, South Korea retains its position as the most innovative ‘global competitor’. It is followed by China, Canada, Australia, and the United States. For these global comparisons, the EIS uses a reduced set of 19 indicators, allowing meaningful benchmarking between European and non-European economies. Returning to the example of “Direct and indirect government support of business R&D”, the contrast with some global competitors is striking. China records a performance of around 161% of the EU level, an increase of more than 100 percentage points since 2019. The United States reaches a similar level, while South Korea scores above 180% of the EU benchmark. The EIS therefore illustrates how several major economies have significantly expanded public support mechanisms for business R&D over recent years, reflecting a more interventionist approach to industrial and innovation policy than is (or was) typically observed in Europe.
Another noteworthy development in the 2026 edition is the integration of insights from the newly launched European Startup and Scaleup Scoreboard (ESSS), a flagship initiative of the EU Startup and Scaleup Strategy. Comparing ESSS and EIS results makes it possible to assess whether a country’s overall innovation performance is matched by the strength of its startup and scaleup ecosystem. Interestingly, smaller countries, particularly in the Nordic and Baltic regions, tend to outperform on the ESSS relative to their EIS performance. Estonia stands out as the most prominent example. According to the report, its exceptionally strong startup and scaleup performance reflects “an unusually dynamic entrepreneurial layer built on a highly digitalised regulatory environment, rather than a broad-based innovation system”.
The opposite pattern can be observed in several larger European economies. Germany and Italy, for instance, perform less strongly on the ESSS than their innovation rankings would suggest, pointing to bottlenecks in the translation of innovation capacity into firm creation and growth. The report notes that this may reflect innovation systems that are oriented towards large-firm industrial R&D and incremental innovation, with comparatively less support for early-stage ventures. France constitutes a notable exception among larger countries, recording stronger startup and scaleup performance relative to its broader innovation performance.
Overall, the 2026 European Innovation Scoreboard once again demonstrates the value of robust evaluation frameworks. Beyond rankings, such instruments provide evidence-based benchmarks, reveal structural strengths and weaknesses, and offer policymakers valuable insights for designing targeted reforms, which would benefit the whole economy.