Montenegro is increasingly positioning itself on the European innovation map

The European Commission has published a new edition of the European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS), which provides a comparative analysis of the innovation performance of EU member states, neighboring countries (including five Western Balkans countries), and global competitors. The report recognizes four categories of innovators: innovation leaders achieving results above 125% of the EU average, strong innovators between 100% and 125%, moderate innovators between 70% and 100%, and emerging innovators below 70%. The year saw a growth of 3.2 percentage points, with an additional 2.8 percentage points in the last year, confirming continued progress. Notably, in the area of enterprise innovation, Montenegro ranked third among 40 countries included in the report. Its greatest achievements include first place in the share of small and medium-sized enterprises introducing product innovations, fourth place in employment within innovative enterprises, and sixth place in business process innovations in SMEs. The relative strengths of Montenegro's innovation system are reflected in the exceptionally high percentage of SMEs introducing product innovations, collaboration between innovative SMEs and other companies and institutions, and a significant level of employment in innovative enterprises.