The Basque Country continues to be the best-positioned autonomous community in the Regional Innovation Scoreboard 2019 published by the European Commission, but has lost position in the European framework. Although, in the set of indicators, the Basque Country has made progress in innovation since the previous report (RIS 2017), the whole of the EU28, Switzerland and Norway have made more progress. As a result, the Basque Country has lost relative weight compared to the average, going from being classified as a region of “high innovation” to “moderate plus”.

The Basque Country presents its main strength in innovation, compared to the average, in the training of the population in tertiary education, while the greatest weakness is found in the lack of design applications and European patent applications.

Regarding the comparison with the previous 2017 report, the indicator in which the Basque Country has made the greatest progress is scientific co-publications, while the greatest setback is detected in collaboration between innovative SMEs.