NETHERLANDS

The Netherlands is one of the Innovation followers. Its innovation performance is just above the EU27 average but the rate of improvement is below that of the EU27. Relative strengths, compared to the country’s average performance, are in Finance and support and Linkages & entrepreneurship while relative weaknesses are in Firm investments and Innovators.

Over the past 5 years, Human resources and Finance and support have been the main drivers of the improvement in innovation performance, in particular as a result from strong growth in S&E and SSH graduates (10.4%) and Broadband access by firms (12.3%). Performance in Firm investments and Linkages & entrepreneurship has worsened, in particular due to a decrease in Non-R&D innovation expenditures (-1.5%) and the Firm renewal rate (-4.4%).