In the category of “up-and-coming innovators”, the country is ranked first on the 2022 European Innovation Scoreboard, the ministry of culture and innovation said.

The EC report published on Sept. 22 shows that Slovakia, in 23rd place overall, and Poland (24th) ranked behind Hungary, while Czechia ranked 14th in the group of “moderate innovators”.

This year, compared with the EU average, Hungary’s performance is 69.8%, 3 percentage points up on its performance in 2021 and just below the 70% threshold of so-called moderate innovators.

Compared with the 2015-2022 period, its performance is 7.1 percentage points higher.

Hungary is strong on indicators such as the number of foreign doctoral students, government support for business R&D, high-tech exports and the number of joint publications of the scientific and corporate spheres.

It is especially strong on collaborations between sectors and the financing and support system, the ministry said in a statement.

Recently, the government has prioritised improving infrastructure for universities and research institutes, linking these up to businesses with a view to creating marketable, innovative products and services, the statement said.

The results of the policy are already clear, it added, noting that compared with the previous year, the indicator of innovating enterprises and attractive research systems measuring the proportion of innovative enterprises outperformed the rest.