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Publication - Progress report

National Innovation Strategy: Scorecard (2026 Update)

Published
27 October 2026
From
Minister for Innovation, Technology and Tertiary Education, +1 more … Cabinet Secretary for Economy, Tourism and Transport
Directorate
Economic Development Directorate, +1 more … Chief Economist Directorate
Topic
Business, industry and innovation, Economy
ISBN
9781807756833

The national innovation strategy first published an innovation scorecard in 2023, tracking Scotland's performance against key metrics compiled from publicly available data. In the third annual update to the scorecard, Scotland’s innovation performance is compared to UK and global peers.

View supporting documents Supporting documents

8. Innovation Active Businesses

Ecosystem:

Adoption

Performance assessment:

Performance Worsening

At a glance

  • In the latest Scotland results from the UK Innovation Survey (2022-2024), 29.4% of Scottish businesses were innovation active.
  • Scotland ranks 11th among UK regions, in the 4th quartile.

What this indicator measures

  • Innovation active businesses is a measure of the percentage of Scottish businesses (with 10 or more employees) that meet the UK Innovation Survey definition of being “innovation active" over a three year period.
  • A business is classified as “innovation active” if, during the survey period, it:
  • introduced a new or improved product, good or service;
  • introduced a new or improved business process; or
  • engaged in an innovation project that was not yet complete or had been abandoned.

Current performance

  • In the latest Scotland results for the UK Innovation Survey (2022-2024), 29.4% of Scottish businesses were innovation active.
  • This is a decrease of three percentage points on the previous innovation survey.

Key data table

Table 8: Percentage of enterprises that are innovation active.

Scotland

2008-10: 33.3%

2010-12: 43.3%

2012-14: 50.4%

2016-18: 32.2%

2018-20: 39.0%

2020-22: 32.4%

2022-24: 29.4%

Source: Scottish Government

UK comparison

  • The percentage of innovation active businesses decreased for all four home nations in 2022-2024.
  • Scotland ranks 11th across the 12 UK nations and regions, in the 4th quartile.

International comparison[22]

  • Comparing to lagged OECD comparable data, and using OECD definitions, Scotland ranks 25th out of 39 nations.

Key charts and insights

Figure 20: The share of innovation-active enterprises fell from a peak of 50.4% in 2012-14 to 29.4% in 2022-24.
Innovation active businesses fell from 50.4% in 2012–14 to 29.4% in 2022–24.

Source: Scottish Government

Figure 21: Scotland has consistently ranked in the lower half of UK regions for innovation-active enterprises.
Scotland consistently ranked in the lower half of UK regions for innovation active businesses.

Source: Scottish Government

Figure 22: Scotland ranked in the fourth quartile of UK nations and regions.
Scotland ranked 11th of 12 UK nations and regions for innovation active businesses.

Source: Scottish Government

Figure 23: Scotland ranked in the third quartile when compared to OECD countries for innovation-active enterprises.[23]
Scotland ranked 25th in a comparison of 39 nations using OECD comparable data for innovation active businesses.

Source: Scottish Government

About the data

Contact

Email: innovation@gov.scot

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