Welcoming the results announced today, Ireland’s Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Minister Mary Mitchell O'Connor said: “As the Government committed to, in our Innovation 2020 Strategy, our vision is for Ireland to become a global innovation leader. We have consistently improved our innovation performance over the last four years moving from 10th place in 2013, 9th in 2014, 8th place in 2015, and now 6th place in 2016 in the European Innovation Scoreboard. Improving our innovation performance will continue to be a key focus for this Government.”

Ireland remains the overall leader in the innovators dimension which demonstrates how innovative Irish SMEs are as European leaders in product, process and marketing innovation. Ireland has also maintained first place in the economic effects dimension which captures economic success stemming from innovation in terms of employment, revenue and exports.

The Minister also said: “I am particularly pleased that key indicators in the scoreboard show that we consistently achieve a greater than average return on our research and innovation investment.”

Minister for Training, Skills and Innovation, John Halligan said: “As Minister for Training, Skills and Innovation, I am delighted that Ireland continues to improve on our innovation performance and I particularly welcome Ireland's high performance in the human resources dimension, which shows that a high share of our workforce have the skills needed to participate in and further develop the knowledge-based economy, leading to more investments in Ireland and greater job creation opportunities.”