More than half of EU businesses are innovation-active
51% of all enterprises in the EU reported that they had some form of innovation activity during the years 2020 to 2022, according to the Community Innovation Survey (CIS). The CIS reports about product and process innovation in businesses in the EU.
The latest CIS shows that Belgium had the highest share of innovation-active enterprises (70%), followed by Greece (66%) and Germany (63%). By contrast, the lowest shares of enterprises with innovation activity were observed in Romania (9%), Bulgaria (26%) and Hungary (30%).
Source dataset: inn_cis13_bas
Share of innovation-active enterprises higher in large than in small companies
During the period 2020 to 2022, large enterprises with 250 or more employees were more likely to have innovation activities (78%) than medium-size companies of 50 to 249 employees (64%) and small enterprises with 10 to 49 employees (47%).
For more information
- Statistics Explained article on the Community Innovation Survey – new features
- Thematic section on science, technology and innovation
- Database on science, technology and innovation
Methodological notes
- The biennial Community Innovation Survey (CIS) is the reference survey on innovation in enterprises since 1992. The survey is carried out in the EU, EFTA and the EU candidate countries. Since 2022, the legal framework for the CIS is Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2022 1092 laying down the technical specifications of the data requirements for the topic ‘Innovation’ pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2019 2152 on European Business Statistics. It identifies the economic sectors, size classes of enterprises and innovation indicators about which EU countries have to report to Eurostat.
- An ‘innovation-active enterprise’ is engaged at some time during the observation period 2020 to 2022 in one or more activities to develop or implement new or improved products or business processes.
- A ‘product innovation’ is a new or improved good or service that differs significantly from the firm’s previous goods or services and that has been introduced in the market. Changes of a solely aesthetic nature are not considered as innovation.
- A ‘business process innovation’ is a new or improved business process for one or more business functions that differs significantly from the firm’s previous business processes and has been brought to use in the firm.
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