The EU and countries linked to the Horizon Europe research programme made progress across several research and innovation indicators between 2010 and 2023, according to the European Research Area (ERA) Scoreboard 2025.
The scoreboard brings together what had previously been the ERA Scoreboard and ERA Dashboard into a single monitoring tool under the ERA Monitoring Mechanism, the European Commission informed on Monday.
It tracks results against four broad priorities, including strengthening an internal “market for knowledge” across Europe and improving access to research and innovation excellence across the EU.
One area highlighted was open science — which includes making research outputs such as academic papers freely available online. The share of publications available as open access rose to 66.5% in 2024 from 41.4% in 2010.
Research staffing also increased, with the number of researchers rising to 4,913 per million inhabitants in 2024 from 3,055 in 2010.
The proportion of women in the most senior academic grade (Grade A) rose to 29.2% in 2023 from 19.7% in 2010.
Gaps remain across countries and research areas
Some indicators showed little change, including the share of firms that innovate and collaborate with higher education institutions, which was around 13.6% from 2020 onwards, according to the scoreboard.
A measure of scientific impact also fell: the share of EU scientific publications among the world’s top 10% most cited dropped to 9.4% in 2023 from 10.5% in 2010.
Environment-related government research and development budgets held at about 2.5% of total government R&D spending from 2010 onwards.
The European Commission plans to adopt a proposal for an “ERA Act” in 2026, as set out in the Competitiveness Compass for the EU.
