Based on their performance, countries were listed as innovation leaders, strong innovators, moderate and modest innovators.

Slovenia is classified as one of the top three moderate innovators. According to the report, its performance has declined relative to that of the EU in 2012. The decrease started in 2018, including because of fewer new PhDs in science.

Linkages, human resources and firm investments are the country's strongest innovation dimensions. Slovenia scored high on international scientific co-publications, public-private co-publications, innovative SMEs collaborating with others, and enterprises providing ICT training.

Finance and sales are among its weakest innovation dimensions. Low-scoring indicators include venture capital expenditures, exports of knowledge-intensive services, foreign doctorate students and design applications, the reports says.

Compared to the EU average, Slovenia is doing well in GDP growth, employment in manufacturing and SMEs' turnover, and not so well in enterprises' R&D spending, setting up of enterprises, and government procurement of advanced technology products.

Overall, the 2020 European Innovation Scoreboard shows that the EU's innovation performance continues to increase at a steady pace. Brexit has had a small impact on the EU's average innovation performance, but has not affected the relative performance of individual countries or the EU's global performance.

At the international level, the EU maintains a performance lead over the US and China, but still has a gap with some competitors, including Japan and South Korea.