Commission releases biennial report on research

On 27 June, the European Commission released the 2024 "Science, Research and Innovation Performance of the EU". The Commission held a launch event on the same date.
Marton Kottmayer,
EuChemS

The 2024 Science, research and innovation performance of the EU (SRIP report) undertakes the challenge of creating a comprehensive assessment of all research-related EU activities. This allows us to gain insights into the progress of the union in the field of R&I over time, to compare Europe’s achievements with other global key players and to identify the areas which leave room for improvement. The most important results are also featured in a brief infographic document.

The report shows that while the total percentage of R&I spending has increased, it still averages out amongst all member states at 2.2%. which significantly lower than the 3% commitment made by them. In addition, it is also lower than the average spending of China (2.4%) and the United States (3.4%). With regards to funding, the report also considers successful startups built on innovation, in which the EU does not do well compared to the United States. In addition, the often mentioned “innovation divide” between high-performing Western-European countries and lower performing Eastern European countries remains a problem.

Despite the issues, mostly due to the historical advantage, the EU leads the list of high performing universities. 18% of the global amount of scientific publications originates from the EU, which is a drop compared to 2024. The report also considered gender equality in academia, and shows that an increasing amount of women are present in stem subjects – however the scales are still far from even.

The report considers the increase in international collaborations a success, which grew with more than 15000 instances compared to the previous framework programme.

The complete report can be accessed here, containing significantly more insights and details, however it is still worth noting that as a high-level policy document, its observations are not granular, rather aim at providing a comprehensive landscape.

For the occasion of the release, the European Commission have organised a launch event, where Deputy Director-General of Directorate-General for Research & Innovation Joanna Drake addressed the attendees and welcomed the report. The event continued with a panel discussion, and attendees could also ask their own questions related to the report.

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