European Innovation Scoreboard 2025 Explained: Bridging Data and Policy with Alasdair Reid

The Insider - Season 2, Episode 2

"European Innovation Scoreboard 2025 Explained: Bridging Data and Policy with Alasdair Reid"

Season 2 continues with a topic that sits right at the crossroads of evidence and strategy in European research: the European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS) 2025. We talk a lot about innovation in Europe — but do we really understand the numbers we rely on to judge how well we’re doing?

In this episode, Ricardo Miguéis is joined by Alasdair Reid, economist and long-standing contributor to Europe’s innovation policy framework. Alasdair has been closely involved with the European Innovation Scoreboard since its origin, overseeing key elements of innovation policy benchmarking, and currently serves as coordinator for the 2024-2027 period. His perspective reflects a deep, system-level understanding of how innovation indicators are developed, interpreted, and translated into policy.

With the new EIS 2025 now out, this conversation is a chance to take a step back and look at what these indicators actually tell us, and what they don’t.

Part 1 – Making Sense of the Numbers

The first half of the episode looks at how the scoreboard came about, how it has changed over the years, and what the 2025 edition reveals about Europe’s innovation landscape. Ricardo and Alasdair discuss:

• What stands out in the EIS 2025 results, and where the data remains silent
• Why countries with similar tools and spending patterns often move in very different directions
• The role that governance, trust and institutional capacity quietly play in shaping innovation
• Why benchmark indicators often become political stories, not just technical ones
• How the scoreboard can be both incredibly useful — and sometimes misleading

It’s a reminder that metrics don’t simply describe reality; they influence how we understand it.

Part 2 – From Indicators to Strategy (and FP10)

The conversation then widens to Europe’s bigger innovation challenges and the structural questions behind them. This includes:

• The long-standing regional paradox: why some areas surge ahead while others remain stuck
• Lessons from countries like China or Canada, and what Europe can and cannot borrow from them
• The persistent gap between policy intentions and actual outcomes on the ground
• Whether our current indicators are fit for a world shaped by green, digital, social and geopolitical transitions
• How FP10 might look if Europe treated metrics not just as a scoreboard, but as a steering tool

One theme keeps resurfacing: measurement shapes strategy, and Europe may need to rethink what it values if it wants different results.

For anyone involved in European R&I — from research organisations and innovation agencies to policymakers and analysts — this episode is an opportunity to hear directly from someone who has helped define the indicators we all work with. It sheds light on the logic behind the EIS, its limitations, and the broader implications for the next Framework Programme.

Listen to “European Innovation Scoreboard 2025 Explained: Bridging Data and Policy with Alasdair Reid” on The Insider.