In comparison to other EU members who joined the bloc alongside Slovenia or later, Slovenia fared worse than Estonia in 29th place and Lithuania in 30th.

The country fared better than Greece (53rd), Croatia (51st), Slovakia (47th), Romania (46th), Bulgaria (45th), Hungary (43rd), Italy (41st), Czechia (37th), Latvia (36th), Portugal (34th) and Poland (33rd).

The ranking is a combined result of three factors: knowledge, technology and readiness for the future. Slovenia scored highest in knowledge.

"Despite a decrease in public and private investments in R&D and a deterioration in company innovation, IMD has determined Slovenia climbed two spots," the Institute for Economic Research, the IMD's partner in Slovenia, said in a press release.

The institute believes that this "minute" progress was made due to an increase in the use of new technologies, better understanding of digitalisation by the public and robotisation, as well as the success of some ICT exporters, among other things.

The institute says that there is still room for improvement in terms of availability of high-qualified staff from abroad, better foreign experience of top management and more articles being published in top science journals.