The innovative capacity of the Netherlands

Innovation is a broad concept that can be put into practice in different ways. First of all, we can distinguish between technological and non-technological innovation. Technological innovation applies to both products and processes. Non-technological innovation applies to organisation and marketing. In essence, innovative capacity is the degree to which organisations in the Netherlands are capable of making such advances.

This factsheet measures the Netherlands’ innovative capacity in three ways:

1. Eurostat’s Community Innovation Survey
2. The World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index
3. The European Commission’s European Innovation Scoreboard
    

Number of innovative companies

Eurostat’s Community Innovation Survey (CIS) asks companies what kind of innovation activities they perform. The figure below shows that the proportion of innovative companies in Dutch industry, at 50%, is equal to the EU-27 average. 

Innovative capacity according to the Global Competitiveness Index

Every year the World Economic Forum publishes its Global Competitiveness Index, which scores countries’ competiveness. Innovation is one of the twelve ‘pillars’ on which the index is based. In 2018 the GCI 4.0 was introduced. In the preceding years the Nederlands slowly entered the top ten for the innovation pillar. The table below shows the position of the Netherlands for this pillar since the introduction of the GCI 4.0. The Netherlands was in 10th position in the 2019 edition. The regular ranking has been postponed in 2020 due to the special corona measures of countries. In the special 2020 edition, the World Economic Forum shows how recovery from the corona crisis can lead to productive, sustainable and inclusive economic systems.

Innovative capacity according to the European Innovation Scoreboard

The European Commission has developed a scoreboard for the innovation performance of European countries. The European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS; called the Innovation Union Scoreboard in the period 2011-2015) shows the positions of the EU countries, including the Netherlands, on a summary indicator of the innovation performance of countries. The countries are divided into four groups: leading innovators, strong innovators, moderate innovators and modest innovators. Till 2015 the Netherlands belonged to a group of strong innovators after which they became an innovation leader in 2015. In 2021 the Netherlands belonged to the group of strong innovators and in 2023 they belong to the group of innovation leaders again. The Netherlands scores above the EU-27 average on most aspects.