25 years of helping Europe measure innovation: Invest Europe remains a key data provider to the European Innovation Scoreboard

For 25 years, the European Innovation Scoreboard has helped policymakers understand how effectively countries across Europe turn research, skills and investment into innovation. Throughout that history, since its first edition, Invest Europe's data has helped ensure that venture capital forms part of the picture.

The first full edition of the Scoreboard, published by the European Commission in 2001, included an indicator measuring high-tech venture capital investment as a share of GDP.

A quarter of a century later, the methodology has evolved alongside Europe’s private capital market. The 2026 edition measures venture capital expenditure as a share of GDP, but Invest Europe remains the European Commission’s data source for the Scoreboard’s venture capital indicator.

Innovation is not driven by research and ideas alone. New technologies must also be developed and brought to market, and that requires appropriate financing at every stage of a company’s growth. For many young businesses developing new or higher-risk technologies, venture capital provides funding that may not be available through conventional sources.

Invest Europe’s continued inclusion in the Scoreboard reflects the depth, consistency and policy relevance of the data we produce. What began with a survey by the EVCA - as Invest Europe was formerly known - on Europe’s still-emerging venture capital market now draws on the European Data Cooperative, which brings together market information from private capital associations across the continent.

Our name has changed, and Europe’s private capital ecosystem has grown substantially, but our commitment to producing robust and transparent research has remained constant. Over the past 25 years, this evidence has helped policymakers better understand the role of venture capital in supporting innovation, company creation and economic growth across Europe.

Invest Europe is proud to have contributed to that understanding since the European Innovation Scoreboard’s earliest days, and to continue supporting evidence-based policies for investment, innovation and growth across Europe.