In 2025, Poland ranked 23rd in the European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS), with only Slovakia, Latvia, Bulgaria, and Romania placing lower. The country also failed to reach the top tier of the Global Innovation Index (GII), where it ranked 39th. According to experts from the Sobieski Institute, Poland’s weak position in these rankings reflects, among other factors, an outdated economic model and insufficient institutional support for innovation. The development of innovation is also hindered by the lack of a clear strategy and the limited commercialization of technologies developed by research institutions.
“The map of innovation is shaped by various indices that show where a country stands compared with others. One of them is the European Innovation Scoreboard, and another is the Global Innovation Index. In the first, Poland ranked 23rd out of 27 countries, meaning fifth from the bottom. In the global index, among more than 120 countries, we are ranked 39th, which places us far behind the leaders,” said Bartłomiej Pawlak in an interview with the Newseria news agency.
Poland’s score in the European Innovation Scoreboard has been gradually improving since 2015, when it stood at 52% of the EU average. Over the past decade it has increased to 66%, but this is still not enough for the country to move beyond the category of an “emerging innovator.” The next tiers include “moderate innovators” (70–100% of the EU average), “strong innovators” (100–125%), and “innovation leaders” (above 125%).
“There are several factors explaining why Poland performs so poorly in innovation indices. One of the most important is the model of our economy, which for three or four decades was based on the so-called ‘3T’ principle: cheap labor, cheap energy, and cheap land. As a result, we became subcontractors for large corporations or subcontractors of subcontractors. What mattered was low labor costs, often very low margins, and the well-known Polish ability to act quickly and efficiently,” Pawlak explained.
According to the Sobieski Institute report titled “Innovation or Drift. Poland’s Growth Map 2026–2035,” innovation in Polish companies is still largely based on adaptation and incremental improvements in processes. At the same time, cooperation between science and business remains limited. Another challenge is restricted access to private capital that could support the development of innovative projects.
“There is also a lack of proper institutional support for technology, innovation, and so-called local content—meaning what we actually produce domestically. Above all, however, the strongest and most effective innovation ecosystems operate according to a clear development strategy, and we simply do not have one,” said the report’s co-author.
The report points to insufficient coordination within the national innovation support system. One of the recommended reforms is to place key institutions—including Polish Development Fund (PFR), Polish Agency for Enterprise Development (PARP), National Centre for Research and Development (NCBR), Polish Investment and Trade Agency (PAIH), the Medical Research Agency, and the new defense innovation agency ORION—within a single economic governance framework responsible for the country’s development policy. The goal would be to move away from fragmented responsibilities and duplicated programs toward coordinated management of policy instruments, ranging from building company capabilities and financing growth to public procurement and strategic technologies.
“A national innovation strategy is the fundamental document in most developed countries in Europe and around the world. Governments must first answer several questions: why we want innovation, how we plan to develop it, how we measure results, and what we want to achieve. Without such a strategy, policy operates blindly. That is largely how we have functioned so far, with the partial exception of the Morawiecki Plan and the Strategy for Responsible Development, which for some time provided a framework for innovation policy,” Pawlak explained.
The Strategy for Responsible Development, adopted in 2017, aimed to stimulate innovative entrepreneurship through measures such as the Business Constitution package, reforms of research institutes, the “Start in Poland” program, and the creation of a more favorable legal environment for entrepreneurship.
“The United States has developed a very specific model based on openness to risk, a huge supply of capital, and the entrepreneurial culture that emerged in Silicon Valley. Such a model cannot simply be replicated anywhere else in the world,” the Sobieski Institute expert noted. “For Poland, however, it is important to analyze which countries in Europe have succeeded and why. We operate within the same European regulatory environment and face similar challenges, so examples from closer to home are often easier to adapt to the Polish system.”
The report analyzes several leading innovation ecosystems, including Switzerland—the current global innovation leader—as well as Finland, France, and Denmark. These countries are considered particularly relevant examples for Poland because they achieved major progress in innovation despite not being leaders 15–20 years ago.
Experts identified several common features shared by successful innovation ecosystems. In all these countries, innovation policy is long-term and strategic, typically codified in a single overarching document. Implementation is handled by a limited number of institutions with clearly defined responsibilities. Effective ecosystems rely on cooperation among a relatively small group of strategic institutions with complementary roles. Many of the organizations responsible for innovation policy in Europe were created within the last 10–15 years and maintain operational continuity. Private capital also plays a crucial role, often activated through public funding mechanisms. Universities and technical institutions act as active participants in innovation ecosystems rather than merely centers of education and knowledge.
“The commercialization of technology and innovation—the transformation of scientific research into market outcomes—is a crucial element of the entire innovation and education ecosystem that distinguishes the best Western European systems from ours. In Poland, universities remain primarily centers of education and research. In Western Europe there is a third component—commercialization,” Pawlak emphasized. “Without it, we will not achieve large-scale technology transfer from universities to businesses. We must develop this area because universities are currently our Achilles’ heel, despite the very high level of knowledge they produce.”
In leading innovation countries, research activity is closely linked with economic outcomes through the identification and protection of intellectual property, direct commercialization through licensing, and indirect commercialization through the creation of spin-off companies. These spin-offs are independent firms emerging from larger institutions—such as universities—whose purpose is to commercialize innovative technologies, knowledge, or products developed within their parent organizations.
“Today, roughly 10% of start-ups are spin-offs. In other words, most start-ups emerge outside the university system. But if we want to increase the number of spin-offs, we must create incentives that encourage academic staff to think about commercialization,” the Sobieski Institute representative said.
Many Polish universities already operate technology transfer centers (TTCs), units responsible for transferring research results and technological developments to the economy. In addition, since December 2015 the Agreement of Academic Technology Transfer Centers (PACTT) has been operating as a voluntary association of more than 100 representatives from institutions responsible for managing and commercializing intellectual property at Polish universities, research institutes, and the Polish Academy of Sciences.
“We should continue developing technology transfer centers and linking university networks together. Young start-up founders want to know what is happening at other universities and in other countries—they want access to knowledge and investors. Universities should be surrounded by research and development centers and commercial entities so that knowledge is physically and institutionally close to where it can be used—in business,” Pawlak concluded.
