#95 - Why Poland Lags in Innovation – A Tale of Two Rankings

Pawel Pietruszewski
Sep 18
3 min read

Updated: Oct 29

Two important reports on global and European innovation performance were recently published: the European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS) and the Global Innovation Index (GII). I’ve been waiting for the GII release this Tuesday to compare the two and write an integrated summary.

European Innovation Scorecard (EIS)

The EIS assesses the research and innovation performance of EU Member States, select European countries, and some global competitors.

According to the 2025 report, Poland is classified as an “Emerging Innovator”, scoring 65.9% of the EU average, and ranking:

23rd among EU Member States
27th among all EU and neighboring European countries

“Emerging Innovator” is a polite label for the lowest-performing group. It includes some former communist countries—but not all. Positive exceptions include Czechia, Croatia, Lithuania, Slovenia, and especially Estonia, which ranks as a Strong Innovator.

Why Is Poland Scoring So Low?

Three key areas drag down Poland’s innovation performance:

Attractive Research System
Innovators
Linkages

What’s particularly notable is how these areas are measured, especially the focus on collaboration, both international and domestic.

Attractive Research System includes three indicators. Two of them relate to collaboration:

International scientific co-publications
Foreign doctorate students (% of total)

On both indicators, Poland ranks 25th in the EU.

Linkages also includes three indicators, out of which two also emphasize collaboration:

Innovative SMEs collaborating with others
Public-private co-publications

Again, Poland ranks 25th in the EU on both.

This highlights a core weakness in Poland’s innovation ecosystem: a lack of collaboration. The 26th place on the product innovation by SMEs, can be a result of this limited cooperation.

Is Government Really the Problem?

Government is often portrayed as the main obstacle to innovation in Poland. Yet, the EIS tells a more nuanced story.

On Direct and indirect government support for business R&D, Poland ranks 10th, one of its best scores. However, this indicator focuses on funding, not the regulatory side of governance, which is not assessed in more depth in EIS report.

Global Innovation Index (GII)

The GII assesses 139 countries on a broader range of innovation inputs and outputs. It also tracks global innovation trends (I wrote about this last year, and will explore in a future post).

The methodology differs quite substantially from EIS. The most important in my view is the emphasis on institutions, a dimension largely overlooked by EIS.

Despite those differences the message for Poland is consistent:

25th in Europe
39th globally

Business Environment: A Critical Weakness

A major concern raised in the GII is Poland’s poor business environment. Despite a slight improvement from last year, Poland ranks 113th globally on the Policy Stability for Doing Business indicator.

This drags the entire institutional dimension down to 68th place, despite decent scores elsewhere (e.g., 35th in Regulatory Quality).

Energy Transition & Sustainability

Both reports score Poland poorly on energy transition. However, I challenge their methodology. They focus on non-circular metrics, ignoring a key concept: material consumption.

I argue that any sustainability assessment, and by extension, innovation, should start with how efficiently a society uses materials to generate wealth. This is better captured in indices like the Planetary Pressures–Adjusted Human Development Index, and deserves more attention in innovation rankings.

Conclusion

When two different frameworks point to the same conclusion, it’s worth listening. This method, called triangulation in science, helps ensure accuracy by comparing multiple perspectives.

In Poland’s case, EIS and GII highlight different challenges, most important are:

Low collaboration
Weak business environment
Unstable institutions

These are clear areas for improvement. If I had to summarize the takeaway in one phrase:

“Collaborate more, reform less.”

A connected, networked society is a powerful driver of resilience. Stable and predictable institutions, like those in Switzerland, are the foundation of long-term innovation success. There’s no single path, but Poland needs to find one that will allow it to join global innovation race.

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