Portugal continues to be considered a moderate innovator among EU member states, according to the fourth edition of the European Innovation Scoreboard 2024 (EIS 2024)^*.

With a performance of 83.5% compared to the European Union (EU) average, Portugal now ranks 24th, with an increase of 0.5 percentage points from 2023 and a growth of 4.3% since 2017.

The results achieved show that national investment in Science and Technology in recent years has enabled Portugal to excel in indicators such as government support for business R&D, public-private co-publications, and the percentage of foreign PhD students. However, the country still faces significant challenges in areas such as fine particulate matter emissions, innovation expenditure per employee, and exports of knowledge-intensive services.

Since 2017, Portugal has seen significant increases in indicators such as direct and indirect government support for business R&D, public-private co-publications, and the percentage of foreign PhD students.

Between 2023 and 2024, Portugal showed significant growth in employment in innovative companies, innovative SMEs collaborating with others, and sales of recent innovations to the market and businesses. However, slight declines were observed in workforce mobility for human resources in science and technology, exports of knowledge-intensive services, and technologies related to the environment.

The EIS 2024 provides a comparative assessment of the research and innovation performance of EU Member States, identifying the strengths and weaknesses of their research and innovation systems. It helps Member States to assess the areas in which they should focus their efforts to improve their innovation performance. Portugal, with its moderate performance, must continue to focus on improving specific areas to advance in the EU innovation ranking.

*The EIS 2024 follows the methodological review of the ‘European Innovation Scoreboard’ (EIS) carried out in 2021, which introduced new or modified about two-thirds of the indicators, significantly altering countries’ positions in this ranking. Thus, it is not possible to compare EIS reports and rankings after 2021 with those before 2021, as stated by the European Commission. For example, while Portugal was part of the “strong innovators” group in the EIS 2020, it joined the “moderate innovators” group in the EIS 2021 under the new methodology.