European Commission: Directorate-General of Communications Networks, Content & Technology, 2024.

StepUp Startups' report examines fragmentation in Europe’s startup ecosystems and offers strategies to boost collaboration, talent mobility, and funding access.

European Commission, 2024.

Mario Draghi – former European Central Bank President and one of Europe's great economic minds – was tasked by the European Commission to prepare a report of his personal vision on the future of European competitiveness.
The report looks at the challenges faced by the industry and companies in the Single Market. It outlines how Europe will no longer be able to rely on many of the factors that have supported growth in the past and lays out a clear diagnosis and provides concrete recommendations to put Europe onto a different trajectory.

European Commission: Joint Research Centre, Compañó, R., Testa, G. and Fákó, P., Publications Office of the European Union, 2024.

This report compares and contrasts the characteristics of unicorns to those of start-up companies in general in Europe, with a particular focus on the influence on the trajectory of these companies of location, industry, and the reputation of venture capitalists investing in them. The analysis is based on a sample of 16,004 start-up companies headquartered in Europe. Our results shows that unicorns mostly emerge in a limited number of countries and metropolitan areas. They primarily operate in high-technology sectors and tend to attract venture capitalists with established and reputable backgrounds. In contrast, the geographical incidence of lower valued startup companies is less concentrated though still predominantly located in major entrepreneurial hubs. These start-ups are often funded by local VC funds and many of them receive government support.

European Patent Office, European Union Intellectual Property Office, 2025.

This study examines the economic outcomes of companies that hold Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) in contrast to those that do not register such rights. Drawing from a comprehensive dataset spanning 2013-2022, the study evaluates over 119,000 firms across all 27 EU member states. The scope of the investigation encompasses patents, trademarks, and designs registered with the European Patent Office (EPO), the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), as well as national and regional IP offices within the European Union.

Letta, E., Jacques Delors Institute, 2024.

The report encompasses a number of suggestions that shall lead to the realisation of the “5th freedom”, including empowering our research infrastructures as well as establishing a strong European technological infrastructure, creating a European Knowledge Commons, removing barriers to knowledge sharing, encouraging public-private partnerships, increasing the mobility of researchers and innovators, championing open science, safeguarding the autonomy of researchers, and addressing the investment gap in research and innovation.

European Commission: Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, Publications Office of the European Union, 2024.

The Commission Communication on the New European Innovation Agenda (NEIA) (1) was adopted on 5 July 2022. The NEIA aims to position Europe at the forefront of the new wave of deep-tech innovation, developing new technologies to address pressing societal challenges, and bringing them to the market. Deep-tech innovation is about innovation rooted in cutting-edge science, technology and engineering. This innovation often combines advances in the physical, biological and digital spheres and has the potential to deliver transformative solutions in the face of global challenges.

European Patent Office, European Union Intellectual Property Office, 2023.

This study examines the role of intellectual property (IP) rights - specifically patents and trade marks - in facilitating access to finance for European start-ups. To this end, it assesses the links between the filing of IPRs by start-up firms and their success in raising venture capital (VC), as well as the signalling power of patents and trade marks as predictors of successful exit strategies for investors.

European Investment Bank, 2024.

Closing the scale-up financing gap is essential for the European Union to maintain its edge in technology. Scale-ups are young, medium-sized firms with high growth potential, more productive than the average company and leader in the development of new technologies. This report provides new evidence on the financial constraints faced by companies as they enter the crucial scale-up phase. The analysis follows firms that received venture capital backing and reached the scale-up phase in the European Union after 2013.

European Commission: European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency, Publications Office of the European Union, 2025.

The report demonstrates the significant progress the EIC has made to become the investor of choice for European deep tech entrepreneurs. Here are some highlights from this year’s edition.

European Commission: Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs, Technopolis Group, Publications Office of the European Union, 2025.

Expanding into international markets outside of Europe is a key opportunity for SMEs to achieve growth and enhance competitiveness as highlighted in the EU ‘SME Strategy for a sustainable and digital Europe’ in 2020. In this context, the objective of this study has been to map the most relevant EU and MS-level policy instruments that support SME Internationalisation beyond the EU and to provide recommendations on policies supporting SME internationalisation, in light of EU strategic landscape. This study follows up the European Court of Auditors’ special report on ‘SME internationalisation instruments’ published in 2022 that called for: more awareness, coherence and sustainability of the support to SME internationalisation. These important outcomes have been further investigated, and a comprehensive mapping of both EU and Member State (MS)-level instruments was carried out.