This report presents the 2021 update of the Innovation Output Indicator (IOI), which is a composite indicator periodically published by the European Commission since 2013 aiming to quantify the extent to which ideas for new products and services carry an economic added value and are capable of reaching the market.

The report presents the latest figures for the composite index and its underlying indicators for 40 countries, including European Union (EU) Member States (MSs) and selected EFTA, OECD and emerging economies. Results show that the overall IOI international ranking remained broadly unchanged since 2011. The EU continues to be outperformed by Israel, Japan, the UK and the US, but there is some evidence of convergence, as the gap between the leader (Israel) and some top-performers countries (Japan, the UK and the EU) has somewhat declined since 2011. As compared to 2019, EU performance in innovation output remained broadly unchanged. Within EU MSs, Ireland, Finland, and Sweden are the top-performers in terms of innovation output, and Croatia, Lithuania and Romania those with the lowest IOI. As compared to 2019, the largest relative increases in IOI scores are observed in Greece, Lithuania and Malta, and the strongest relative falls in Romania, Slovakia and Sweden.