Each year, the European Commission publishes a report on innovation, ranking the different EU member countries.

While this year has seen positive trends overall, the body has warned that more is needed to be vie for global competition.

Coming in fifth, the UK is doing reasonably well compared with other EU member countries.



Published with the aim of highlighting to EU member countries the areas which they ought to focus on improving, the European Commission published a 2018 ranking on innovation in Europe.

The commissioner for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs Elzbieta Biénkowska commented on the rankings in a European Commission press release, saying: "The 2018 scoreboard shows again that Europe has a wealth of talent and entrepreneurial spirit, but we must do better at turning this excellence into success."

Although Europe has managed to maintain its footing in terms of world innovation, China is fast closing the gap, with its rate of innovation growing up to three times faster than that of the EU. To produce the ranking, the Commission gives points based on a number of factors — including whether the country has an "innovation-friendly environment", a country's human capital, public expenditure on innovation and related investments made by private companies.

Below you can see Europe's 20 most innovative countries, ranked from least innovative to most according to the innovation points assigned to them by the European Commission.